


B Equals

by hostagesfic



Series: Beginners' Mathematics For Dummies [3]
Category: One Direction (Band), Radio 1 RPF
Genre: Blow Jobs, Comeplay, Domesticity, F/M, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Hospital Visit, M/M, Mood Swings, Mpreg, Nipple Play, Petty Arguments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-09
Updated: 2013-09-09
Packaged: 2017-12-26 02:08:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/960322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hostagesfic/pseuds/hostagesfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick texts him, <i>you haven’t won, Styles</i>, just to see him dig his phone out of his pocket.</p><p>Harry grins over at him.</p><p>Nick’s screen flashes, <i>I think I can wear you down, old man</i>, along with a winky emoji and, damn him, a baby bottle.</p><p>A few seconds later, they’re followed by a bee emoji.</p>
            </blockquote>





	B Equals

**Author's Note:**

  * For [loverave (snitchpuff)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snitchpuff/gifts).



> We did the thing!!! Many thanks to our betas: Sarah @SarahAH30 for the fantastic Brit pick, and Brie [coolbreeeze](http://archiveofourown.org/users/coolbreeeze%20), for kindly telling us ten thousand times to use commas instead of dashes. You’re both superheroes. All of our love and thanks go to the lovely Hezza @nicksfriend_ for being a wonderful cheerleader/yelling person when we were trying and couldn’t find the energy to finish this. And of course, ultimately, this is for the incredible Lucy [loverave](http://archiveofourown.org/users/snitchpuff), who donated like, way way more money than we’d EVER think our writing is worth to the AO3 to keep it wonderfully functioning and filled with lovely fanworks during the [AO3 Auction](http://ao3auction.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Please note that this fic begins directly after the previous installment in [Beginners'](http://archiveofourown.org/series/37777), [We're A Lovely Equation](http://archiveofourown.org/works/693391). We would suggest reading the first two in this series before tackling this particular beast (or re-reading them, as it's been a while since they were first posted!) Finally, a bonus playlist to go with this fic can be found [here](http://hostagesfic.tumblr.com/post/60724832311/b-equals-a-playlist-musical-supplement-for-b).

By some miraculous act of a higher power, Puppy doesn’t get into the cold Chinese they’ve left out on the counter overnight, so that’s what Nick has for breakfast on Sunday morning. Aimee’s at Ian’s with Thurston, because that’s definitely become an Actual Thing somehow, trips to Miami and unbearably adorable Instagram pictures and all, and Nick’s happy for her except for the selfish side of him - the one that he likes to understate - that gets lonely when Harry isn’t around. It isn’t something he’ll dwell on, however, when his pop star baby daddy has brought him food and a cuppa in bed and remains naked as the day he was born.

“It never gets old,” Nick says. “Having you here, slaving away like a proper adult to feed and clothe me in a literal sense rather than a, well... I guess that’s what you’re doing when you’re off, you know, gallivanting. But it feels nicer when you’re doing it at home.”

“I feel nicer when I’m doing it at home,” Harry offers, agreeable as he usually is in the mornings, halfway through breakfast. Even in Nick’s grumpiest days of morning sickness, he’d been inordinately chipper and boundlessly supportive. Nick had eventually threatened to stuff him if he didn’t simmer down, and he likes to think they’ve found a happy medium of enjoyable lethargy in the a.m. hours they share now. Harry holds out his own fork with the last raspberry from the bowl of fruit salad, and Nick accepts it. “I feel helpful,” Harry says, as Nick chews. 

“You’re very helpful,” Nick pokes his nose, and before he’s even swallowed his raspberry, adds a forkful of fried rice to the mix. It’s tastier than one would expect, but Nick’s been having odd cravings, so it might actually be shit. Pregnancy is full of mysteries that Nick isn’t about to demystify before he’s even had a shower. Surely, there’s a better day for that sort of detective work than Sunday. “Wait,” he says, brows furrowing as he swallows, “I’m upset.”

Harry frowns, too, and turns his whole body towards Nick. Dammit, Nick’s missed this, having the entirety of Harry’s attention fixed on him. “Why’re you upset?”

“Rochelle’s had her baby,” Nick hums, counts off on his fingers- “and Fearne, and Annie. Even Kate will have her posh little kidlet before I do. I feel like I’m late on this whole thing.” He makes a face down at his stomach, pokes the little bump of it.

“Fashionably late,” Harry says, brows wrinkled. He’s very good at taking Nick seriously, even when Nick thinks he probably shouldn’t be. “You’ll be sporting a lovely glow when they’re all peaky from late nights with crying babies.”

“That means _I’ll_ be peaky eventually!” Nick shrieks, stuffing a tempura prawn in his mouth. The batter has gone mushy and awful, like his ego. “Peaky and fat! I’ll _never_ be able to work the baby fat off, Harry, I’m gonna _die_.”

“Woah, hey, hey,” Harry laughs, like Nick’s sorrows are funny, and slings his arms - tan and lovely from the time he spent traipsing about shirtless in Spain - around Nick’s shoulders, kisses his cheek. He’s the reason Nick’s got a person growing inside him in the first place and yet _he_ gets to look like something straight from Olympus. “I’ll help you work the weight off. And I’m sure you’ll look lovely, you won’t be peaky at all! You’ll get to have drinks and coffee and stuff, I know you miss those.”

“Understatement,” Nick huffs, nudging his elbow against Harry’s side but tipping their heads together. “Just, y’know. Tired. Miss you and stuff. Don’t let it go to your curly head.”

Rather than taking the piss about it, Harry goes quiet and solemn in that particular way that makes him look like an afflicted baby animal. “I miss you too, Nick,” he mutters, kisses his temple again. “Miss you both.”

"Aw, god," Nick whines in a nasally, silly voice, bats his eyelashes ridiculously at Harry. (He also wipes at his eyes with his knuckles, because he's only human - and a pregnant one, at that - in a way he hopes is understated.) “At any rate, eventually we’ll have to, y’know.” He gestures at himself vaguely.

“Have to what?” Harry freezes. Nick really needs to work on not giving the poor lad heart attacks on a daily basis. Then again, it keeps him on his toes.

“Like, y’know,” Nick says, gesturing vaguely some more. “Tell the nation, and stuff.”

“Oh,” Harry says. His eyebrows go way up and then fall again, and Nick resists asking when the last time he had them plucked was. He quite likes Harry’s eyebrows, in all honesty. They’re just so expressive. “Oh,” Harry says again, more positively, like he’s surer of his reaction after a moment to think. “Well, yes.” 

“The people will notice,” Nick shrugs. “We’ll have to give them fair warning to migrate or build their bomb shelters or whatever.”

Harry frowns again. “Our child is not going to be the downfall of the kingdom, Nick.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s some sort of mutant,” Nick sniffs. “We know for sure it’ll be half sasquatch, so there’s that to look forward to.”

“I suppose it’d be cool if he or she had superpowers,” Harry reasons. “Does that sort of thing run in your family?”

Nick pauses for a moment because his aunt _was_ rather odd, but. “No,” he concludes. “No, I don’t think we Grimshaws could cover that sort of thing up. We’d have to show it off. End up swan-diving off Big Ben after a grand speech and having called the papers.”

Harry giggles. “You would,” he grins. “You so would, you’d discover you had wings and you’d plan it all out to be on the evening news.”

“Alas, I don’t have wings,” Nick sighs conclusively. “Just a bun in the oven and a pop star baby daddy.”

“Poor thing,” Harry nods, giving his bump a pat.

;

Although he considered begging, and knew he probably could’ve convinced him if he had, Harry to wake up with him at arse o’clock on Monday for the show, Nick’s a nice person and lets him sleep in instead, stealing one of Harry’s shirts from his overnight bag, throwing it on over a baggy tee and calling it hobo chic.

(Nick, too, isn’t entirely sure how the whole announcing-he-is-pregnant-on-the-radio thing will go. It’s sort of the reason he’s been keeping Harry out of his common banter on the show. People are quick to assume things, and even if their assumptions turn out to be true, Nick likes having a semblance of control over what he tells the public rather than letting _The Sun_ pry every last bit of him out into the public eye.)

Matt’s been increasingly and suspiciously sympathetic, and this morning is no exception; he has a cup of decaf coffee at Nick’s desk and a croissant that looks fresh from a French market on a napkin printed with baby bunnies. Nick smiles helplessly at the whole arrangement before remembering to look unimpressed. Matt smiles winsomely. 

The show that morning goes off well. They don’t have any guests, but they have a prerecorded interview with Olly, which is always good fun, and it lets Nick have a seven minute break to lumber around the studio rubbing the small of his back while LMC laughs at him. 

He’s getting back in his seat when he gets a text from Aimee; it’s rather surprising to see she’s alive before nine, but the message, _just cos y pregnant doesnt mean y can leave ya things lyin about_ , comes with a picture of Harry lying on the sofa starkers, giving the camera a double thumbs up. “Good lad, that Olly,” Nick says into the mic after the clip ends. “Here’s Haim, friends!”

Harry’s text comes in soon after. _Hiiiiiiiiiii I’ll be there soon, figured I could say hi to the team before we had to go .xx_

Way for him to remind Nick, of course, just as he’d almost managed to push it to the back of his mind, of the appointment they have lined up later at the doctor. Right.

 _Ugh take your time_ , Nick sends back, holding his mug out and shaking it at Matt. He’s been officially appointed coffee runner for the day.

Harry sends back a banana emoji.

;

They finish the day’s broadcast without a hitch; the mics somehow don’t pick up LMC’s squeak of delight as Harry does his best to tiptoe into the studio when they have half an hour left on-air. Harry behaves, too, doesn’t mess with the mic weights or the sliders on Matt’s soundboard, instead pulling a stool up next to Nick and resting his chin on Nick’s shoulder. None of the team say anything about how his hand is obvious on Nick’s thigh, fingers stretching up to rest on the bump.

At the end of the show, Nick pulls his headphones off and sets them carefully on the desk, crumples up the napkin Finchy got him and throws it in the bin, dusts crumbs that aren’t really there off his jeans. He’s been having trouble buttoning them- as in, the biggest pair of them, which he dug out from the back of his closet, barely zip up, and really, he’s given up on the bloody button altogether. He’s oddly bitter about it, clinging onto this last shred of normalcy as if caving and actually _purchasing_ pregnancy clothes means he’s given into this whole thing entirely.

“Well then,” he mutters, but doesn’t really make a move to get out of his seat.

Harry draws away slowly, turning to smile at him. “Got somewhere to be, haven’t we?” He glances at his stupidly large watch. “In an hour.”

“Is it really that necessary?” Nick pouts, fiddling with his hair. “We could just do like they did in like, the middle ages, you know? I bet those people didn’t go in for checkups when they were pregnant. I bet a lot of them didn’t even _know_ they were pregnant until far later than this.”

Harry’s brows furrow deeply, and he huffs a little. “We’re not _in_ the middle ages, and we need to know if everything’s going okay. And I thought we agreed we didn’t want to keep calling him or her _it_.”

“Reminds me of that movie with the clown,” Nick wrinkles his nose. He’s an _adult_ , he’s perfectly alright with going to the doctor. This is stupid. He stands up quickly; _too_ quickly, apparently, as he suddenly feels lightheaded and has to drop right back onto his chair, clutching at his stomach. “Shit, that- fuck.”

When he looks up, Harry’s face has gone absolutely white, and he’s leaning half over Nick, fingers clutching his chair arm. “Nick, what’s-” 

“I’m _fine_ ,” Nick says, quickly, “Fine, just stood up too fast, Harold, no need for dramatics.” He’s all too aware of Matt and LMC behind them, watching, and Fiona’s silence across the desk. “Maybe you could help me to the water fountain, make sure I don’t fall in and all that,” he says, lightly.

Harry nods, and takes both his hands to help Nick up. 

No one says anything as Harry wraps an arm around Nick’s waist and keeps one of his hands in his, muttering things with the sort of swallowed-back nervousness that makes Nick’s heart ache; makes him think, for a quick moment, of what he’ll be like in a few months’ time when they actually _have_ the baby; what he’ll be like in the weeks and months and years thereafter, raising a little creature with Nick’s stupid nose and his big green eyes. Nick hopes he’s not the only one thinking about it, anyway- Harry’s incredible at this already, and it’s equal parts scary and reassuring.

Harry pauses when they’re out the studio door, and Nick points in the general direction of the nearest water cooler, leans against the wall while Harry fills him a cup. Harry doesn’t seem content to just let him down the water and go, however, guides him with a hand on his elbow into the bathroom instead, props him against a stall and turns on the faucet of cold water in the sink. 

Nick doesn’t bother asking what he’s doing, finds out soon enough when Harry folds paper towels carefully, wets them and comes over to hold them under Nick’s chin and lave them across his forehead. It does feel nice, cool and almost as calming as Harry’s touch. 

“Hey,” Harry says, when Nick closes his eyes. “Are you alright?”

“Feeling a bit stupid,” Nick admits, mouth quirking up at the corner. “Bit of a weakling, aren’t I?”

Harry purses his lips. “You’re _pregnant_ ,” he says, “not a weakling. We can ask the doctor about it in a bit, see if there’s anything we can do about dizziness. Did you have breakfast?”

“A yoghurt in the car,” Nick says, “and Matt got me a croissant. Could’ve had more protein, I reckon. I’ll make him run for an omelette tomorrow, maybe.” 

Harry cups Nick’s face in both his large, cool hands. “I’ll make you an omelette tomorrow, if you’ll eat it.”

“It’s your break,” Nick protests weakly. “You shouldn’t have to wake up so early.”

“I’ll come to work with you,” Harry shrugs. “Nap under your desk like a rather too-large-for-a-shrinking-lap dog.”

Nick scoffs, noses at Harry’s cheek. “You’re ridiculous.”

“I worry about you,” Harry says, but his eyes get distracted in their business of being all soulful, dragging down to stare at Nick’s mouth. 

“Don’t,” Nick says, and kisses him preemptively. “Or rather, do, but only in the way of extra food and sexy things.”

Harry laughs, and if Nick’s still a little dizzy when they leave the bathroom, it’s for entirely different reasons.

;

Once Harry’s made sure that Nick’s not about to pass out again, they make their way out through the back of the building. Although no one seems to have seen Harry on his way into the studio, Nick’s little stunt already cost them nearly a half hour, and the last thing they need is a mob of Harry’s fans out front spotting them.

Harry’s car is parked in a questionably legal zone, and when Nick raises an eyebrow he just sighs. “I called Louis to bring it around, it was at his, remember, and I took a cab from yours-” Nick nods, because as much as he loves Harry, he doesn’t really _care_ about a car story at the moment. Now that Harry’s not snogging his brains out, albeit tenderly, he’s remembering his nerves for their appointment.

Harry squeezes his hand. “It’ll be brilliant. We’ll get ice cream after.”

“My mum used to bribe me with ice cream,” Nick sighs, pulling the seatbelt strap out all the way and buckling in gingerly, adjusting it around his belly. “Can’t think of a single time she followed through.”

“I’m sure she had her reasons,” Harry shrugs, turning the key in the ignition, and Nick punches his arm. “Ow!”

“You’d better follow through, Styles, I’ve a _trauma_ ,” Nick huffs. “It’s Eileen’s fault I’m a compulsive liar.”

“I’m not sure-” Harry trails off, backing up and changing gears effortlessly, grabbing Nick’s hand and settling it under his on the gear stick. “Why don’t you pick a record?”

Nick grumbles, but he flips through Harry’s CD case and slides a mix he recognizes by his own handwriting into the player. 

Aside from the music and Harry’s occasional hum along to every other song, the drive is quiet. Nick looks out the window and counts trees, and when that gets boring he counts red cars, trying to calm his nerves. It’s not the first time he’s been to the doctor, but it’s the first with _Harry_ , and surely that’s a good excuse for his frayed nerves, not to mention finding out what kinda bits are between the baby’s tiny legs. It’s daunting, the whole thing, has Nick chewing on his lip obsessively and smiling shakily whenever Harry squeezes his hand.

Although the weather doesn’t call for it, Harry pulls a beanie over his head and grabs a jacket from the backseat after they park in the underground car park. Nick stops him from grabbing his sunglasses from the cupholder, scoffs, “There’s only so much you can do before it’s _too_ obvious, pop star.”

“Just- don’t want people bothering us,” he mumbles. Nick looks out the windows; the garage’s fairly empty and the car windows are tinted, so he chances leaning over and pecking Harry’s lips reassuringly.

“It’s alright, Haz. Just don’t, y’know, do pop star-y things,” he advises, and Harry snorts.

“I don’t think I ever do pop star-y things,” he says. “I don’t _try_ to, anyhow.”

“It comes naturally to ya,” Nick nods sagely, turning to push his door open. Before he can embarrass himself hobbling onto his feet, Harry goes around and offers two steady hands, grinning. “Goes with the charm,” Nick adds, rubbing his lower back when he’s sure he’s steady. “You’re just unbearably _nice_ , Styles.”

“‘m glad you think so,” Harry smiles. He’s cautiously watching the garage- it’s still empty, and he keeps hold of Nick’s right hand, guiding them towards the elevator. “This’ll be good, alright? S’exciting.”

“Buzzin’,” Nick deadpans, but he can’t keep a straight face, smiles lopsidedly and nods in agreement. He picked a good doctor, discreet and fairly isolated, trustworthy, and as it stands he’s only run into two or three people- all women- in the waiting room, and none of them seemed to recognize him or want to make a big deal of it if they did. The receptionist is lovely, a lady around his mother’s age if not a bit younger. Actually the entire clinic is lovely, which is why Nick had chosen it. They’d understood Nick’s need for privacy from the beginning, had been willing to work with his insistence on meeting directly with the doctor rather than a nurse or technician, even on early visits. He just doesn’t want his ultrasounds ending up in _The Sun_ , is all. 

They’re only a few minutes early, and much to both Nick and Harry’s relief, the waiting room is empty.

“Did you make some sort of blood sacrifice for this,” Nick whispers, and Harry snorts before checking Nick in, smiling politely at the receptionist.

It’s the first time he’s been able to come, but he doesn’t seem nervous or even out of place, signing Nick’s name on the registry quickly and sitting down beside him in a chair by the door, setting his hand on the armrest, palm open for Nick to accept.

Since Nick can be a little bit emotionally stunted, instead of saying something sweet as he grabs Harry’s hand, he mutters, “I think I’m gonna vom.”

Harry startles, and before he can run for the bin in the corner, Nick squeezes his fingers, “I’m not, I’m not, I was just. I’m _nervous_ , dammit, I didn’t _mean_ that.”

“I didn’t _know_ you didn’t _mean_ that,” Harry frowns, turns in his seat to give Nick a once-over, lifting his free hand up to his forehead. Nick really, really needs to work on not giving him a heart attack before they even know if they’re having a boy or a girl.

The door opens and Nick swats Harry’s hand away from his face. He’s a little too late, going by the amused smile stretching his doctor’s lips as she scribbles something on her pad and motions them back. 

;

After having his belly poked at and his vitals taken, Nick lies back on the stationary trolley, following the doctor’s orders, and tries his best to breathe deeply, in through his nose and out through his mouth. “You can pull up that chair,” the doctor tells Harry, nodding at it, and Harry picks it up and sets it at Nick’s side, takes Nick’s clammy hand in his own, pleasantly warm albeit slightly shaky.

“He’s nervous,” Nick tells the doctor, and Harry just nods, blushing.

“Don’t try to pretend you’re not,” the doctor rolls her eyes, and squirts the unpleasantly cold, god-awful goop below Nick’s bellybutton. Nick dreads the eventuality of it getting all swollen and stretchy too, poking out weirdly.

Harry’s said that he thinks pregnant bellies are adorable, misshapen belly buttons and all, but Harry is a kind-hearted little liar who knows Nick’s insecurities all too well.

“Has anything been achey, Nick?” the doctor hums. She flicks switches and presses buttons and looks in her screen, and for a moment Nick _almost_ wishes he’d retained any of it when she explained what each thing was supposed to do the first time he had an ultrasound.

Nick rolls his shoulders, looks down at himself, as if assessing the situation. “Feet, lower back. The other day I woke up and my _nipples_ were killing me, it was ridiculous.”

“He got really dizzy when he stood up earlier,” Harry supplies, eyes glued to the screen, even though it’s all grey at the moment. 

“Those are all normal symptoms,” the doctor chirps, grabbing the transducer. Nick can remember _that_ much. “You’re screwed with the nipples bit; men get the symptoms but don’t actually lactate, but I suppose that saves you the whole leaky thing, too. How’s the libido?”

Harry actually laughs in surprise, barking and squeaky, glancing over at Nick and then back at the doctor. She grins, shrugs. 

“Alive and well, thanks,” Nick mutters, squeezing Harry’s hand. “Bump ‘n’ grind, all that good stuff.”

Laughing, the doctor presses the transducer to Nick’s belly, spreads the gel. “You’ve probably got a few more good weeks left,” she says, “I’d take advantage of it. After that all he’ll be good for is back massages and ice cream runs at 3 a.m.”

Harry laughs again, this time weaker, and his fingers tighten around Nick’s. Nick knows they’re thinking the same thing. Harry has exactly one more week before he leaves on tour, and Nick won’t see him again until later this summer. 

Harry exhales soundlessly and smiles, brave and turning goofy. “It looks like you’ve a slug on your belly,” he mumbles, gesturing with his free hand.

“That’s funny,” Nick says coolly, “I was thinking of something else entirely.”

“Alright, there you are!” the doctor interrupts, rolling her eyes. Surely she’s heard _that_ one more than once. “You’ve a visitor today, little one, your other daddy’s come along to say hello!”

“Hiya,” Harry breathes, lifts the floppy paw that isn’t holding Nick’s in a vise to wave at the still-unfocused screen. 

As if on cue, the baby pokes Nick, a gentle nudge like he or she is saying hello. “Yes, I’ll relay that,” Nick mutters, and doesn’t even pause to reflect on what’s become of him, speaking to a tiny thing growing in his stomach. “It says hi.”

“Don’t say _it_ ,” Harry huffs, still staring at the screen like the unintelligible shapes on it hold the answers to the universe. “He or she.”

The doctor turns to them. “You do want to know, right? I’m coming up on the money shot now and if you’re not 100% sure...”

Harry looks over at Nick. “Yeah?”

The thing is, Nick wasn’t entirely sure, not 100%, definitely, even sitting in the waiting room ten minutes ago. But lying back on the distastefully colored trolley, pleather sticking to his back where his shirt is pulled up, neck craned to glance past the doctor’s shoulder at the screen of the monitor, with Harry beside him, breathing gone so irregular that Nick actually notices it, “Yeah,” he says. “Why the fuck not.”

The doctor snorts, tilts her instrument of destiny and looks at the screen, and Harry squeezes Nick’s hand once more in his own clammy fingers. He knows Nick means, _Yes, absolutely_.

“Aha,” the doctor grins, jerking her chin at the screen. Nick has absolutely no clue what she wants him to see until she explains, “Girl bits! You’ve a very healthy little girl, lads, congratulations.” 

“Ohh,” Harry says, but it sounds more like a religious experience, or some great revelation about the universe; the very same one he’d been looking for moments ago. 

All Nick sees is the largest, squirmiest of the sea monkeys his mum had bought him for Christmas the year he turned eleven. He hadn’t even fucking wanted sea monkeys.

“Ohh, she’s beautiful,” Harry says, and Nick actually looks over at him to make sure he’s not looking at a _Sports Illustrated_ swimsuit calendar on the wall or summat, because there’s no way he’s actually referring to what they’re seeing on the screen right now in any such awed terms.

It turns out he is.

Nick squirms, much like his apparent progeny on the monitor. “So are we good to go, then?” 

Harry’s head whips around to him. “You don’t want to... can’t we just stay and watch a bit?” He turns to the doctor, smiles hopefully, “Couldn’t we? Just a little longer, it’s the first time I’ve even _seen_ her like this.”

“Pop star,” Nick says, twisting their fingers together, “are you having us on? It’s… she’s a sea monkey, Harry.”

“Hey,” Harry frowns. He won’t stop _staring_ at the screen. Surely this poor woman’s hand is getting tired. Nick’s throat hurts. He was promised ice cream. “She’s lovely.”

Nick must be faulty, emotionally stunted, because right at this moment he doesn’t fucking _get_ it. Maybe he will later. “You know those sea monkeys that come in a little packet and then you feed them and they don’t do anything? That’s what I’m seeing. I think we should get it a tank. Her a tank.”

“I’ll make some prints for you,” the doctor sighs, smiling politely at Harry, and Nick isn’t even surprised she’s seen _this_ too.

“Don’t _say_ that,” Harry whines, leans down to _talk_ to the bump. “Don’t listen to him, yeah love? He’s just surprised is all.”

“Alright,” Nick says, sitting up. “Alright, this is quite enough monkey business for one day, if I have to lay here with goop on my belly for another moment I might scream.” He looks at the doctor and smiles, tightly. “Might I have some wipes or?” 

“Of course,” she nods, and hands him a wad of paper towels, putting away the transducer and pressing some buttons on the machinery that will, if the gods are smiling on Nick, quickly get Harry the photos of his sea monster child that he so desires. 

“My coworker just had hers,” Nick babbles, swiping up the goop before it can reach his trousers. “Er, Rochelle? Know her? I’ve been making fun of her for _weeks_ on the telly, we even had a big like, confetti cannon a couple of weeks ago, she’s been great about it all while I just ask for more blazers and things even though I’m sitting behind a desk for most of the show, I’m convinced our wardrobe people _hate_ me for it.” He very suddenly feels like if he doesn’t stop talking, he’ll cry. “At any rate she’s had it, sent us all a picture,” he waves a hand, turning to sit up and get his feet on the ground, dropping his shirt. “It’s a bit wrinkly but she says it has Marvin’s eyes...” he nods as Harry hands him his shirt, “thanks Harry... and sleeps a lot, so I suppose that’s good.”

When he turns to look at the doctor, both she and Harry are looking at him with funny, pitiful little smiles. “I’ll see you- whenever it is?”

“Our receptionist will call to remind you,” the doctor nods kindly. 

“Good, yes,” Nick nods, tight-lipped. “Thank you.”

;

To his credit, he holds it together until they’re in the car. Harry hasn’t said anything more about how their daughter is a beautiful flower just waiting to blossom, or sop of the like, which helps more than Nick can express.

“Fuck,” Nick sobs, and Harry unbuckles his seatbelt and almost sits on the gear shift to get to Nick, wrapping him up in a tight hug as Nick takes quick, ragged breaths.

“Woah, hey,” Harry says, and he’s _everywhere_ , petting Nick’s hair and kissing his wet cheeks and rubbing his back soothingly. “Hey, it’s okay, she’s okay. I’m here, Nick.”

“She’s a _blob_ ,” Nick wails, “all like, blobby and with blob bits instead of real parts!”

“She’s a _baby_ ,” Harry insists, “they’re supposed to be like that at first, they’ve not even got bones. Well, maybe they’ve got jelly bones, I dunno, but like, they’ve not got anything to hold them up, proper. She’s only five months yet, Nick.”

Nick’s being irrational, he _knows_ he is; he knows how babies work, loads of his friends have had them and people don’t just _appear_ , they have to like, go through changes and grow solid bits, and yet he can’t just _stop crying_.

Harry finger-combs his wilting quiff back out of his face with tender fingers, humming soothingly. He’s still holding onto Nick tightly, like he’s a little afraid Nick might just open the passenger door and storm off. Nick _wouldn’t_ ; he’s relatively sure he’d never be able to find anyone who would love him or his sea monkey daughter with half of the dedication Harry does.

“Nick,” Harry mutters, pecking a quiet kiss behind his ear. “Let’s- let’s go get you that ice cream, maybe?”

“ _No_ ,” Nick shrieks. He thinks his lip might be wobbling. New low. “Not like _this_.”

“Then we can go home,” Harry amends quickly, kissing his forehead and wiping his cheeks with his thumbs. “I’ll figure it out, if you still want ice cream. D’you want ice cream or just a cuddle?”

Nick feels a bit- a _lot_ \- like a child, except children don’t grow sea monkeys in their bellies. “Both,” he whines.

“I’ll figure it out,” Harry repeats, more like he’s reassuring himself this time, and shrugs his jacket off. “I- I have to drive, but I dunno, you can give this a cuddle? Is that alright?”

“It’s _terrible_ ,” Nick pouts, grabbing the jacket anyway. It looks expensive. He almost feels bad, preemptively, for crying on it. “Home, please.”

;

Nick doesn’t hate Louis Tomlinson. 

He even mildly appreciates the bugger, for all he’s done to make Harry’s life amenable and to keep him out from under bloody lifts during their stage shows. He also sent a pair of really, really cute little leather boots over for the baby from some Italian designer while they were in Europe. Nick would’ve appreciated a matching pair in his size, but hey, small steps. 

It’s just that Louis has a penchant for turning up at the absolute worst possible times in life, like when you’re trying to fit all of Harry Styles’ cock in your mouth in a ironing board-sized closet at the Brits or when you’ve just come back from the doctor’s office having found out you’re expecting a sea monkey instead of a normal human child. 

“Harry!” Nick yells, from the door, his eye at the peephole and his hand not moving on the knob. “Harry, _make him go away!_ ” 

Harry runs out of the kitchen with a steaming kettle still in one hand, hair wild around his face. “What?” he gasps, “Who? Is it a fucking Sun correspondent, I’ll-” 

“It’s not _The Sun_ ,” Nick rolls his eyes. His watery, red, puffy eyes. “It’s your best mate, he’s _at our house_.” 

Harry cocks his head at Nick. “Well let him in!”

“I look like shit,” Nick hisses, staring at Harry. He’s known his boyfriend to be obtuse at times, but never this willfully oblivious. 

“Then why did you go to the door?” Harry hisses back, looking exasperated. 

“To see who-”

“I can hear you two,” comes Louis’ voice from the other side of Nick’s traitorous front entry. He sounds chipper and obnoxious, as usual. “Bickering like old ninnies, the pair of you, open up before the paps come round would you? Spark an awful gossip, me banging down Nick Grimshaw’s door just before twilight.” 

Harry carefully maneuvers Nick out of the way and opens the door. Shrinking against his foyer wall, Nick watches as they exchange their complicated and unnecessarily involved greeting rituals. His plan is to melt into the wallpaper and remain unobserved, but Louis doesn’t give him the option, sweeping Harry aside to wrap his arm around Nick’s neck. “Cheerio Grimshaw, you look a bit down. Harry says you think your daughter looks like a sea chimp.” 

“Monkey,” Nick says automatically, and frowns. He doesn’t quite feel like crying anymore, but he’s still got the unpleasant lump in his throat. 

“Monkey,” Louis allows, like he’s being very gracious. He steers Nick towards the living room. “Anyhow, I thought I’d pop round to see for myself. And, you know, bring the ice cream Harry mentioned you might have been wanting some of?” Out of nowhere, he’s brandishing a bag from the shops by Nick’s head. Nick does the calculations. There’s at least three cartons in there. He could kiss Louis Tomlinson in this moment. 

“What flavours?” he asks, to be sure.

“Coconut, pistachio and chocolate,” Louis recites, and grins at him. “I even got full-fat, just for you, love.”

“Hey,” Harry pipes up, once more in the kitchen, apparently plugging the kettle back in to reheat after its excursion earlier. “No moves on my man, Louis.” 

Louis smiles beatifically, and Nick can hear the words coming before he even opens his mouth. “I can’t help it if I’m irresistible. And my milkshakes bring all the boys and the girls to the yard. Or in this case, my full-fat ice cream.”

“Milkshakes, though,” Nick says. “Let’s back up to where you said milkshakes.”

Louis shrugs. His arm is still around Nick’s shoulders, even though they’ve sat down on the sofa and it’s a stretch for him. “I’m not saying I make the best milkshakes outside of Milkshake City, but. I do.”

Harry appears with three cups of tea balanced miraculously between his two hands and potters around putting Nick’s feet on the tuffet and covering his legs with a throw with Thurston’s face on (a Christmas present from Aimee two years ago), settling himself by Nick’s knees and patting his thigh. “Louis does make nice milkshakes.”

Louis has curled up, proper Peter Pan style, crossed-legs and... suddenly bare feet, which Nick objects to on a basic level but can’t be bothered with at the moment. Not when there are potential milkshakes at stake. Louis is sipping his tea like he doesn’t realize the urgency of the situation, and Nick nearly drops his own when he motions vaguely. “So? Can you make them _now?_ ” 

“Well,” Louis says, licking a drop of tea out of the corner of his mouth with the tip of his tongue. Harry must give him A Look, because he rolls his eyes and gets up. “Show me to the blender, Harold.”

;

Nick finds a very delicate balance between sipping his coconut, pistachio, and chocolate milkshake - much more savory than it sounds, thanks - and sniffling to keep from having an embarrassing leaky nose situation. They’re not supposed to _deal_ with leaky noses for- surely a few months, at the very least. Curled up on the sofa, he watches as Harry extracts the ultrasound prints from their envelope and leans over the coffee table to hand them to Louis.

“Wait,” Harry says, snatching the prints back and squinting at Louis’ outstretched hand, his other wrapped around a chocolate milkshake of his own. “No sticky fingers?”

“No sticky fingers,” Louis confirms, glancing down at his hand perfunctorily. “Let’s have her, then, c’mon.”

Harry gives Louis the prints and perches on the arm of the sofa, like he can’t be any further from them. “It’s… well, Nick wasn’t very happy about...”

“Looks like a sea monkey,” Nick mutters, swirling the straw in his glass. “Not much of a human baby, is she?”

Brows furrowed, Harry points out different parts of her. “Those’re her hands, and that’s her head, and you can only see one of the legs, but that’s it, right there.”

Louis nods along, and of _course_ he’d indulge Harry. He’s put up with him for years now, he must be used to him, and... Nick sips at his milkshake, attempting to freeze the unpleasant feeling at the pit of his stomach, the slightest sting of misplaced jealousy. Louis flips to the next print.

Nick’s growing increasingly uncomfortable with the fact that Louis Tomlinson is perched on his sofa, maker of milkshakes or not. He’s peering at photos of Nick’s baby and letting Harry hover over him and grace him with the entire story of their visit, and how the doctor had said something about toes or fingernails or any number of other things Nick obviously missed while he was freaking out because _their child is a sea monkey_. “Well,” he says. “Show’s over, I really think.” 

Harry looks up, betrayed, from his gesturing at the photos, but Louis ignores him altogether. He picks out the last picture and holds it up, squints. “You know,” he says, “I’m not seeing a sea monkey so much as a bean.”

“A _bean_ ,” Nick says. “A _bean?”_

Louis shrugs. “Not in a bad way, mate. Just. Y’know, see, she’s all curled up like she’s in ‘er little pod. Which, she sort of is, right?” He traces the line of the baby’s spine in the photo, an arc in the middle of a jumble of grey, and Nick pauses in his righteous indignation. His hands settle back down on his stomach. 

“A bean is good,” Harry says, cautiously, looking at Nick and then back at the photo. “Like, she’s a baby plant, just waiting to blossom.”

Nick’s first impulse is still to call them five year olds and storm off with his milkshake.

“Lemme see that,” he mutters, making grabby hands at the print, and Louis brings it over, lets Nick hold it but traces a kidney shape around the blobs on the paper with his fingertip.

“My mum like, does this,” Louis explains. Nick sniffles. “She says they always look like beans for a bit. They just grow out of it.”

“That makes sense,” Harry supplies. Nick wants to wipe the hopeful smile off his face, somehow. Crush his hopes and dreams or something. He’s feeling vicious and left out. But a bean _is_ better than a bloody Christmas stocking stuffer. 

“A bean,” Nick repeats, and nods very slowly. “And she’ll-” he waves his glass, runs a hand through his hair, “sprout, blossom, whatever it is beans do. Babies. Beans. You know.”

Harry looks so relieved that Nick’s glad he said something. He even feels a bit better himself. 

“Well,” Louis says, standing up and straightening out his trousers fussily, swiping at his fringe. It’s an insufferable habit, Nick thinks. “I’ll leave you and your bean and your Harry to finish off your shakes and do whatever you three do on your own.” 

“Thanks, Lou,” Harry sighs, getting on his feet to give Louis a hug. It’s a bit funny-looking, even with Louis tiptoeing into it.

“Don’t mention it, mate,” Louis nods, then turns to Nick. “The rest of the ice cream’s in the freezer, yeah? Harry’s milkshakes are shit.” He rolls his eyes at Harry. “Let me stop you before you make that joke, Styles. I suppose you can just like, eat it.”

Nick stares at the print, slurping the last of his milkshake. A bean. “It does have a certain ring to it,” he decides. “Bean. B. Lil’ B.”

Louis and Harry grin at each other. Nick pretends not to notice.

;

That evening, Harry leaves Nick to curl up on the sofa with Puppy as he cooks dinner. Aimee has finally surfaced with a text, _Ill b out ya hairs for the week enjoy baby daddy time xxxx_ \- and Nick feels zen, really, not at all worried about what will happen once their week ends and Harry’s off to conquer the world again.

Working through a lovely dinner of grilled chicken and steamed vegetables and two cans of diet Fanta, Nick chooses to live in the moment. YOLO and whatnot. He’ll think about what he’ll do when he _doesn’t_ have a long-limbed pop star to use as a blanket when the time comes.

They’re quiet the way that’s so comfortable between them, old school rap hushed from the living room, the lights low. Harry does the washing up and Nick leans against his back, chin on his shoulder, until Harry dries his hands and turns them around, shuffles them through the kitchen like an awkward slow dance, hands sliding from Nick’s hips across to the most prominent point of his belly. 

Nick closes his eyes and thinks about his back garden, how Aimee and Ian had suggested planting a bit of a proper garden for summer. He isn’t sure if it’s too late, now, but he thinks about Harry’s hands in the dirt, thinks about the two of them swearing at weeds and watering measly tomatoes in the sun. To be honest, Nick hasn’t often felt domestic during his pregnancy to date, hasn’t found the energy for any proper nesting, but maybe he’s just been putting it off, delaying the inevitable disappointment of having to do so much of it on his own.

With Harry around, it’s easy to get distracted with _we could’s_ and _what if_ ’s. 

Nick eases himself around in the circle of Harry’s arms, and smiles down at him. “C’mon, then, Styles,” he says, “Let’s see if our favorite portly British housewife is on telly with her pies.”

;

For breakfast, Harry does indeed make Nick an omelette. It’s sitting on the table when Nick gets out of the shower, even though Harry himself is nowhere to be seen. Nick checks the stove top, because he’s paranoid, and is impressed to find the burners have all been turned off; he then picks up his plate of omelette and goes to find Harry.

Harry is easily found. He’s curled up as small as a Harry-sized teenager can get on Nick’s couch, with Puppy pressed up against his chest. One floppy arm is thrown over Puppy’s back so she can’t fall off the edge of the sofa, and his fingers are twitching a little in mid air. He’s asleep, obviously, and Nick would feel a lot creepier about watching him sleep as he finishes his breakfast if not for the fact that he’s been doing pretty much the exact same thing for the past two years. Staring creepily at Harry in every and all stages of consciousness is rather a speciality of Nick’s by now.

His phone buzzes in his pocket, and Nick knows his cabbie’s out front. He takes his plate back to the kitchen, grabs a napkin out of the holder on the counter and a Sharpie out of his miscellaneous drawer. 

On his way out the door, Nick leaves the note on Harry’s forehead. He doesn’t stir, and Nick misses him already, so fiercely that it burns his throat. He tells himself it’s just the acid reflux.

;

In a perfect world, Nick could skip out on his review meeting after the show that morning to meet Harry for lunch, like Harry texted him to suggest. ( _got your note, asshole. there’s sharpie bled through onto my face thanks._ and shortly after, _can I take you to lunch? .xx_ ) Nick’s world is far from perfect, though, so he can’t bunk off, and instead sits through thirty minutes of staff arguing about whether AlunaGeorge or Disclosure deserve the slot after the new Union J single. Nick has his own opinions about all three, but they’re slightly less than complimentary at the moment, and Nick knows this is only because he’s feeling gassy and starved, and so keeps his mouth shut. For once. He thinks he probably deserves some sort of sainthood for this, on top of the one he’s receiving for dealing with Fincham for so long, but nobody else mentions it. Nick crumples a post it into a ball in his fist under the table and feels sorry for himself.

They’re finally through debating the playlist for Wednesday morning when someone asks Nick to stay for a moment as they discuss _upcoming publicity options_. Nick does lift his head at that, exchanging a doleful look at Matt, who stays rooted in his seat across the table from Nick even as the rest file out. There’s some throat-clearing, but in the end nobody actually asks him to leave, and Nick wishes that his doodle of Matt with devil horns and a tail curled round and up his ass was in pencil instead of sharpie. He crumples the post it further, and makes a mental note to throw it out somewhere LMC won’t go through the bins.

“So,” says a person Nick should really remember the last name of. It’s just that she’s relatively new, and works on the next floor, and Nick can’t really be sure if she was even here for the playlist meeting or came in specifically for this appointment from hell. “Nick, we’ve been waiting on you to make any-” she pauses, “suggestions on this front,” she finally settles on, nodding to herself. “We do appreciate you keeping us updated on the situation since you found out, but to be honest we’ve never dealt with this issue before with a male host, and we were waiting to see if you had your own plans before recommending a course of action.” 

Nick finds this an extremely generous way of putting it. He’d alerted Big Boss Ben Cooper™ as soon as he realized that this, whatever it might be, with Harry and the baby, was actually happening for the long run. (Although he’d carefully left out any actual names. He’s pretty sure Ben knew anyway, from the eye-rolling and deep sighing.) They’d thanked him for letting them know and asked him to keep them aware of “any progress,” but Nick hasn’t really talked to anyone since. His agent had said they should keep it quiet until Nick and the station decided on how to handle it, but the station was obviously as unprepared for this occurrence as Nick, and as hesitant to deal with it.

As much as Nick enjoys chaos - entropy rules and all that - it’s a bit unsettling to have absolutely no bleeding clue what to do.

“Um,” he says, holding onto his crumpled post it like a lifeline. “I- don’t have a specific course of action at the moment, no.” He barrels on before anyone can interrupt, and Matt’s giving him those soft puppy eyes from across the table as he says, “I figured I could maybe take a couple of months off,” Nick hesitates, but pushes on, “if it comes to that, ‘til the end of the year? But I don’t... this is sort of my dream job.”

The woman from upstairs, as Nick’s brain has conveniently labeled her, looks taken aback. “We’re not at all suggesting you leave your job, Nick,” she says, “That was... very much not the intention of this meeting. You’ll be given the standard parental leave that BBC offers the rest of its employees at your pay bracket, of course, and we’ll have someone else fill in that you check off on. I meant more from the publicity side of things, we need to know if you had plans for letting the media know about your pregnancy.”

“Ah,” Nick nods, very slowly.

“In most cases,” the woman says, rather hesitantly, “like with your colleagues, miss Cotton, and Annie Mac, the pregnancy was not quite as. Unexpected, on our end.” She laughs, a little nervously. “Since they’d been in publically acknowledged relationships for some time before, but... obviously because of your situation, the media will be more interested in yours. We just need to know if you _are_ in a relationship, or if you plan to raise your child as a single parent, because that’s going to be the number one question our publicists will have to answer.”

“If I may,” Matt clears his throat, glancing between Nick and the lady from upstairs, “you _do_ know Nick’s... exceptionally adept at talking without actually _saying_ anything, which, before you yell at me Grim, could sort of help in this situation? I mean, does he _have_ to make that decision and let everyone know?”

Nick, who had been previously working on chewing a hole straight through his lower lip, chimes in. “If you absolutely _must_ know, I didn’t shag a random bloke and get pregnant.” He feels a little bit like he belongs on a reality show, or one of those talk shows where there’s screaming and finding out who the parents are.

The lady from upstairs shuffles the papers in front of her. “Nobody thinks you did, Mr. Grimshaw.”

“Good,” Nick says, thinking of the pop star sprawled on his sofa, “cos he’s actually quite lovely. And I’m doing everything I can to keep him, so there.”

Matt clears his throat, and under the table, an ankle brushes Nick’s, hooks between his and rubs soothingly just where Nick’s sock has ridden down. “I think, maybe, to get back to the purpose of the meeting,” he says, in the infinitely practical voice that Nick usually finds obnoxious, “what Miranda is trying to say, Nick, is that they’re trying to figure out how to spin this in the best possible way for you, considering that it’s soon gonna be impossible to just cover it up. And what _Nick_ is trying to say is that he doesn’t want to announce anything definitively about his relationship status.” He looks between the two of them. “Right?”

“He’s my translator,” Nick smiles, pointing at Matt with his thumb. “Yes, and I think eventually, when me and... the other father are ready, we’ll make another announcement, if that’s alright with you.”

“Okay,” says the lady (Miranda, apparently, because Matt is infinitely better at names than Nick, at least when Nick has an excuse like pregnancy brain). She exhales a little, like this has been some sort of trial for her, and shuffles papers some more to find her pen. “Okay, so let’s talk about the verbage for a press release.”

;

By the time Nick gets out, it’s half past one, and he texts Harry to say he’ll catch a cab home. Nick’s tired and hungry and really wants to get out of his work clothes and into something comfier, like boxers with the elastic cut loose and nothing else, and he calls in a delivery of Chinese for a snack, orders enough to last for dinner, too. Maybe even enough to share with Harry.

Harry, who, when Nick shuffles through the door lopes out of the kitchen to hoist Nick up and spin him around, kissing his cheek loudly. “Hiya,” he says, and Nick groans, swats at his arms until Harry sets him down. Harry looks so crestfallen that Nick can’t keep up his indignation. 

Nick sighs and leans into him, squeezing Harry’s hips where his plaid shirt dips and his jeans threaten to fall down. “Hi, popstar.” Winding both arms around Nick, Harry holds him for a second, breathing into his hair in that sasquatch way of his that means he’s smelling Nick like, well, Puppy does. 

“Y’alright?” 

Nick snorts against his collarbone and nods, straightening up. The height difference doesn’t do anything for the near constant crick in his back that pregnancy has brought on. “Long day at the office, Mrs. Grimshaw,” he says. If Harry notices his pause after that, he doesn’t comment on it, simply laughs like it’s the same joke it would’ve been before he knocked Nick up and Nick’s bosses sat him down to talk about their relationship.

;

Nick very carefully does not bring up the meeting until after they’ve had their food. He very generously gives Harry half of his orange chicken and even some lo mein on the side, and they share a short afternoon nap, Puppy wedged between their thighs in bed. Harry’s got his phone in his hands, and Nick’s waiting for him to drop it on his nose, which he will at any moment now, when he sighs, raking a hand through his hair. “Had a meeting at work today,” he mutters, and Harry fumbles but doesn’t drop his phone. Maybe next time.

“Yeah?” Harry grins, not the lazy smirk he gives the cameras when he’s working, but a nervous little thing, like the first time Nick met him. He turns, too, lies on his side to face Nick, giving him his undivided attention. “What about?”

“‘bout this thing,” Nick nods down at himself, keeps his chin tipped down to try and disguise his blush.

“Bee,” Harry corrects him, reflexive. “Bee for bean. Or baby.”

Nick sighs, because he might as well get in the habit. “Bee,” he nods. “They’re not, y’know, forcing me to announce it or whatever, but... I’m kind of a ticking bomb, if you really think about it.”

Harry frowns, slow like every expression is on him when he’s been awake only shortly. He sets his phone down between them and his fingers disappear under the covers to touch at Nick’s belly where his oversized tee shirt covers the bump. “Makes it sound like you’re a hazard t’public safety,” he mumbles, “‘stead of just, like, having a baby.” 

“Well,” Nick retorts lamely. “They specifically wanted to know about, well, you? Because it’s not quite like with Annie or Fearne, and I’m kind of the constant here, and you’re like, the variable, I suppose. I said,” he starts, before Harry can give himself an ulcer, “that for the time being I’d rather make it about myself, ‘cos I don’t think that’s the sort of stress you need now, with all your pop-starly duties and all.”

Harry looks up at him, face strangely still, except for the crease between his eyebrows. “What- what d’you mean, make it about you?”

“The way they put it, letting the world know I’ve a bun in the oven would either be a combo pack along with telling everyone who the other dad is,” Nick explains, carefully, and reaches for Harry’s fingers against his stomach, “or opening the floodgates for a manhunt, really, to find out who knocked me up. So um, rather than let those things happen, I said I won’t specify at the moment, won’t give them anything that they could trace back to you, either. If that’s okay with you, of course.”

Harry looks at Nick for a moment, sucking his lower lip between his teeth, and then nods, his hair making soft noises against the pillowcases he and Nick picked out on a shopping trip last autumn. Nick isn’t sure why he’s thinking of that now. He isn’t sure why his eyes feel itchy, either. 

Harry reaches up and thumbs away what is definitely not a stubborn tear clinging to Nick’s lower lashes. With his other hand he squeezes Nick’s fingers, offers him a small smile. “Is that what you want?” he asks, quietly.

 _No_ , Nick thinks, _I’m selfish and I want you in this with me the whole way_. “Yeah,” he says, conscience kicking in. “You’ve got your tour, and then all that other stuff... what’s that thing you’re releasing, a line of tampons, innit?”

“Excuse me,” Harry says, “it’s a collaboration with Diva Cup, actually, Nick, thanks.” He exhales, and the smile fades too fast, has Nick’s lower lip trembling with how much he needs it back, needs Harry to pretend this isn’t hard, too, before he does actually cry. 

Harry scoots closer and kisses Nick’s chest, the base of his neck, just below his jaw, the corner of his mouth, his eyelid when Nick has to shut his eyes. “Hey,” Harry breathes, warm and soft and _close_. “Hey, Nick, please don’t- don’t shut me out. I know it- it’s fucking bollocks, the timing is, and I’m so sorry, I could- I could talk to them about dropping the tour dates, again.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Nick huffs, tangling his fingers in the sheets. “You can do your thing,” he shrugs, “your pop star thing, and when you’re done with that stuff you can join us. With any luck it’ll be before she’s ready to leave for uni.”

Nick doesn’t realize how _vicious_ he sounds until after he’s said it, and Harry looks like a wounded animal. “You know I don’t mean that,” Nick croaks, sniffs for good measure. He’s a bit of a mess.

Harry can’t seem to close his mouth, lips parted on words he can’t decide on; more careful with his than Nick is, he thinks, bitterly. In the end he pulls away, sitting up in their bed and pushing the heels of his palms into his eyes, resting his elbows on his knees. He looks incredibly young like that, his shoulders jutting out, spine arched, he’s naked, as usual, but instead of looking silly and sexy, it just makes him look vulnerable this time. “Do you _want_ to do this alone?” he says, finally, so muffled Nick can barely interpret it. He doesn’t look up. “You said- you said you told them to make it about you, and. I know you’re trying to protect me, but. Is that what you want?”

Even if Nick didn’t _love_ Harry- if he wasn’t actually, dauntingly in love with this boy who doesn’t wear enough clothes and laughs too loudly and has hidden lines straight out of a romantic comedy in that moment, he isn’t sure he could actually take this away from him; the promise of that little girl metamorphosing into a small person inside Nick’s stomach at this very moment. “I don’t want to do this alone,” Nick says, slowly. “I wanna do it with _you_ , but. I don’t want to take your- everything with the band away from you.”

It takes a moment for Harry to lift his head. He looks at Nick searchingly for another second, and then crashes down beside him, tucking himself in as close as he can to Nick’s chest, head under Nick’s chin, nose pressed to Nick’s sternum. “God,” he whispers, “I’m so- I’m _so_ glad, Nick, I thought,” Harry pauses. “I was so scared, I didn’t know what to do. I don’t know what I would’ve done.” He tips his head up, and Nick can see his eyes, darkly luminous, and the edge of his mouth, that wide, hopeful smile. “I want this so bad, Nick.”

“I can tell,” Nick laughs, tipping his face down to bury his nose in Harry’s curls. “You’ll... you can talk to your people about when to do it, I suppose, but I still don’t wanna be the one to do it for you if you’ll be away.”

Harry nods, obviously more receptive to the plan now that he’s reaffirmed that Nick wants him around. Which is all sorts of unbelievable and ridiculous, Nick thinks, but very Harry all the same. Nick loves him, so terribly.

They’re quiet for a good while, then, just holding on to each other in the big bed. They’re motionless long enough that Puppy gets bored, and jumps off the foot of the bed to go seek more adventurous playmates, like the toilet paper roll in the hall bathroom, or that one feisty rug in the front entry. Nick nearly calls her back, for the sake of his Persian fringe, but Harry sniffles and presses his mouth to Nick’s collarbone, and Nick exhales, stays silent. If he’s keeping Harry around, they can afford plenty of expensive housewares, anyway.

It’s nearly a surprise when Harry speaks up again. “Sometimes I think about... just, saying fuck it, right?” He sounds contemplative, and so, so young. Nick tilts his head to watch Harry’s mouth move with the words. “Like, actually giving it all up and just- y’know, letting the press go mad.” 

Sometimes Nick forgets that Harry’s nineteen, steadfastly idealistic, and that he still daydreams impossible things. Then again, he supposes that Harry’s rather used to impossible things coming true for him. He smoothes Harry’s fringe back from his forehead and doesn’t say anything.

“And just,” Harry waves a hand in a small gesture. “We could get married, and I could be your house-husband and keep Bee while you work.”

“Well,” Nick hums, “for one, I don’t believe the first bit is _legal_ just yet.” Harry looks up, absolutely dismayed, but Nick’s smiling, twirls one of Harry’s curls in his fingers. “Why would you want to _do_ that, though? Give up your dream job so I can have mine? It’s admittedly very sweet, pop star, but you don’t need to. What would I even call you if you weren’t a pop star anymore?”

Harry’s eyes flicker up to Nick’s. “Hubby’s a nice ring to it, I think.”

“Such a sap, it’s disgusting,” Nick says, disguises a shiver with a half-hearted shrug. “And what would you call me? Still just Nick?”

“You’re never just Nick,” Harry says, sweetly, the kind of sweet that’s ended up giving Nick cavities. And worse problems, too, if he’s honest. 

“Well,” Nick says, helplessly. “Like I said, I don’t think it’s really legal at the mo.”

Harry huffs and props himself up on one elbow, narrows his eyes at Nick. “That’s the point of daydreaming, isn’t it? I say all the stupid, ridiculous things I _wish_ could be true, and you go along with them and say ‘oh that’s lovely, Harold,’ and I get to pretend that I don’t have to- to leave you, at the weekend, and not see you for months, and miss... maybe even miss Bee getting born.” 

Absently, Nick thinks that he’s going to have to talk to his doctor about getting some sort of meds, because there’s no way his emotions can stand the seesaw they’ve been wrung through today. Maybe they can prescribe something for Harry, too.

“You won’t miss her being born, Harry, shut up,” Nick mumbles, sniffles pathetically again. “You’ll be there and watch them cut me open and convince them to give me a lipo while they’re in there. You’re her dad as much as I am.”

Harry, impossibly, starts laughing. “God dammit, Nick,” he says, nearly shaking with it. “You’re so fucking- I’m not getting you- you’re- _lipo-_ god.” He shakes his head, and his hands are a little sweaty, a little bit trembly when he cups Nick’s jaw, leans in for a kiss, but he’s still Harry. It’s still a good kiss.

;

Harry’s much more successful, the next morning, at staying awake after making Nick’s breakfast. He’s slumped over the counter, a hand curled around a cup of tea and the other gripping the handle of one of Nick’s rarely-used frying pans, curls all over the place and _still_ starkers, when Nick finds him.

“What have I told you about cooking without clothes on?” Nick grunts, beelining for his own cup before even flopping into his seat very carefully, mindful of the dull pain in his lower back. “D’you not care about the equipment anymore, now that you’ve knocked me up?”

Harry frowns and then laughs, looks down at his cock as if he’s surprised to see it. “I guess accidental deep-frying would be a shame,” he acknowledges. “Speaking of, bacon?”

“I knew I kept you for a reason,” Nick sighs happily. When Harry strategically drops the bacon onto his plate, it makes a _smiley face_ with his eggs and toast. “Are you sure you _aren’t_ a Disney princess, Styles?”

“Relatively,” Harry shrugs, “I still can’t manage the singing-and-animals-appearing thing. I think Liam might’ve mastered it though.”

Nick nods along to this, as he’s always been a little suspicious of that Payne lad. 

“By the way,” Harry says, “the boys were... they wanted.” He wrinkles his nose as he sits down opposite Nick, twines their ankles together under the table. Nick can’t help the immediate thought that it’s far nicer playing footsie with Harry than it is with Matt. “They were wondering if they could come by for a bit, sometime before we left, right, to like… see Bee.”

“They do know there isn’t an actual baby yet,” Nick says around a bite of egg. Harry must’ve been watching those Gordon Ramsay videos again, because it’s _sublime_.

“Well, yeah,” Harry says. “Or, I mean, I assume so. Liam might not, actually.”

“Getting downright vicious in your old age, Harold,” Nick grins, and Harry smiles back at him. 

“So, is it alright? If they come over some night. Not for long, just. I want them to see, y’know?”

Nick understands, really, Harry’s need to show him off, like, “look at this cool thing I’ve done!” because he’s wanted to do exactly the same multiple times, himself, about Harry. He takes another bite of eggs and bacon and rolls his eyes indulgently. “Alright,” he sighs. “As long as they don’t paw all over me.”

;

They do paw all over him. It should be obnoxious, it _would_ be, if it were anyone else, but somehow with One Direction it’s just rather... cute. Nick’s bundled up on his sofa with Harry at his side, one long arm draped over his shoulders, and Niall and Liam on his opposite side with Zayn and Louis on the floor at either knee. Puppy’s been running around like mad but she’s calmed slightly since they all settled for “baby time” as Harry announced five minutes ago.

“Does it hurt?” Niall asks, and he’s always had a bit of childish charm to him, even now that his braces are off, as Nick notes. Nick’ll have to remember to have him sign a napkin or something for Fincham before they all leave.

“My back and feet do,” Nick responds before anyone can cut in. He knows how Harry’s crew rolls. He’s got to fight his way into conversation. “Wanna rub ‘em?”

“Y’not as big as I thought y’might be,” Zayn speaks up, even as Niall sticks out his tongue and laughs in Nick’s face. “When’re ya due, again?”

Nick sighs dramatically. “September,” he announces. “It’s still forever away.”

“Can we touch it?” Niall asks, fingers hovering just over Nick’s stomach. He’s wearing an old tee of Harry’s, so the bump is very visible, stretching the fabric in a way that makes Harry’s eyes soften and Nick strangely self-conscious and pleased at the same time.

“Her,” Harry corrects. “We’re calling her Bee currently.”

“Bee,” Niall repeats. “S’at short f’something, then?”

“Beyoncé,” Louis breaks in, speaking up for the first time. He’s been eyeing Nick’s belly with increasing intensity, and Nick’s glad that Harry is so close, because if Tomlinson makes a move to somehow steal his child before it’s even born, he wants all of Harry’s muscle in the way. 

Liam snorts a laugh, holds out a hand that Louis meets with a fist, which Liam then wraps his fingers around, like some sort of silly pop star handshake. Nick’s seen worse. Then again, they might just be holding hands.

“Are you excited, then?” Zayn asks, grinning, and tipping his head for permission to press his fingertips to Nick’s stomach, gentle.

“You could even say we’re buzzing,” Harry blurts out. Nick’s happy he’s not the only one groaning.

Niall’s hand is still hovering like some alien Irish spacecraft, and Nick gives him a nod. He settles it high on the top curve of the bump, knobby knuckles spreading out gently. “Oh,” Niall breathes. “Oh, that’s nice mate.”

Harry laughs, breathlessly, pressing his own hand to the other side of the bump, and Nick nearly laughs at them, but doesn’t, because. Because it’s nice, to think of this as something wonderful, nearly magical, for once, rather than just an inconvenience or something to deal with. Nick likes being adored, and One Direction gathered around his baby bump making awed noises is pleasantly worshipful.

“Can y’feel her kick at all, yet?” Zayn asks, shifting his palm against Nick’s stomach and looking hopeful. 

“Sometimes,” Harry says, grinning. “It’s rare yet but the doctor said it’ll increase pretty quickly in a couple weeks. She just needs a lot of extra rest at this point.” 

As usual, Nick finds himself floored by Harry’s ability to talk so easily about their daughter. Harry gives him a soft smile, and Nick can’t help but smile back. He leans into Harry’s arm, lets the five of them rub at his belly like he’s a Buddha; like they need any more luck. For once, Nick feels luckiest of all. 

;

Nick’s in the kitchen a while later, getting himself another glass of ice water (“I can get it!” Harry protested, and Nick told him he had to take a piss anyway, “seriously, Styles, don’t you dare volunteer to help with _that_ too.”) when he feels the baby moving around. It’s her first appearance of the day, and a grand entrance: a swift kick up at his ribs that leaves Nick leaning against the counter and frowning down at his belly.  

“Y’alright there?” 

Nick looks up quickly, and relaxes when it’s not, in fact, a random intruder (or Puppy, showing off her super skills for the first time), but just another pesky member of One Direction. Zayn looks a little bit worried though, and he’d rather assuage any fears before he gets Harry involved. Harry is _the worst_ about coddling. 

“Fine,” Nick nods, and then winces, as Bee (“not _baby”_ , says Harry’s voice in Nick’s head) shoves a limb into some internal organ. It’s probably irreparably damaged and Nick will never even know what it was. 

Zayn’s look turns from concerned to curious. “S’at her, then?”

“Lady of the house,” Nick says, rolling his eyes. 

“Could I?”

Nick hums, “Could you... oh, you- yes, why not,” he sighs, nods Zayn over. He approaches like Nick’s a wounded animal in a forest, or something equally majestic and easily startled, straight out of _National Geographic_. With both hands braced on the counter at his sides, Nick shifts his hips forward, putting his bump on display for Zayn to flatten a hand against.

“You’re really lucky,” Zayn smiles, looking infinitely older than a twenty-something pop star should, one hand just above Nick’s bellybutton.

“D’you really think so?” Nick asks, because there’s _something_ about Zayn. He’s pretty sure it’s the eyes, honest to a fault and unerringly sweet.

Zayn nods, and Nick grabs his wrist, moves his hand closer to the spot Bee seems to have chosen as her punching bag for the day. “I- I mean, I know like, maybe the timing wasn’t the best f’you and Haz, but you’re still really lucky, like, Louis and I are mad jealous of Harry, you know? Pezza’n I sort of- we’ve talked about it, but it’s not the best time for either of us, so we’re waiting. And I think Lou’d always thought he’d be the first to start his own footie team.” Zayn grins a bit.

Nick considers this, and alright, he’s not counting it as Nick 1, Everyone Else 0, but. It’s nice to hear from someone else that this is something to be excited about. Nick thrives on attention, but even moreso, validation. Also, his footie team will be aces compared to Louis’, thanks ever so. 

Very conveniently, and ever the attention seeker, honestly, Bee gives Nick a swift kick to the innards, which Zayn must’ve felt, if his crinkly-eyed smile is anything to go by. “Mate, that’s _sick_ ,” he laughs.

“Oh, it’s sick, alright,” Nick grumbles, but Zayn’s smile is contagious.

;

“Third’s the charm,” Harry announces the following morning, when he’s fully dressed and has Dev on low and breakfast on the table for Nick, a lovely plate of yoghurt and strawberries with a little bowl of granola next to it, as well as Nick’s gummy vitamins, a glass of orange juice, and a cuppa. What a saint.

“You’re awfully smug for someone willingly awake at five in the morning,” Nick grunts.

Harry drops a kiss on Nick’s cheek before dropping his little bum on the chair across the breakfast table. “I _told_ you I’d go to work with you at least once this week.”

“True love,” Nick mutters. “You put on clothes for me.”

Harry grins down at his plate and shovels in a bite that a human mouth shouldn’t be physically capable of holding. His cheeks puff out for a moment, and he fluffs at his hair with one hand. Nick is reminded of a rather large chinchilla. He blinks and shakes his head, taking a sip of his orange juice and bemoaning the fact he’s apparently reached a point in life where he finds furry mammal activity sexy. Sort of. Nick grimaces.

“Remind me to text Fincham that you’re coming in today,” Nick hums, sets a hand palm up at the middle of the table. Harry grabs it immediately, and it’s Nick’s turn to smile down at his yoghurt. “Better get LMC a sedative.”

;

As it turns out, Nick shouldn’t have worried about LMC, as it’s the ever-traitorous Fiona who shows up at work with half a dozen baby catalogues. Nick wonders if Harry’s presence has anything to do with this attack, or if it was simply a premeditated act of terror against him, but she looks surprised enough to see Harry at the studio when Nick arrives with him and his smug smile in tow.

“Oh, _perfect_ ,” Fiona grins, shoving catalogues at Harry and kissing his cheek. “These came to my mate’s place on accident and we haven’t got a use for ‘em, but I thought you might have a look. There’s some cute clothes.”

“No,” Nick says, flatly. “No, no-”

“Oooh,” Harry says, and takes them all, settling into a swivel chair and flipping the first open across his knee. 

And so Nick finds himself making wide-eyed faces across the desk at Matt as reminders that the rest of the crew have turned into _children_ , cooing over tiny onesies and socks that wouldn’t fit around Nick’s toes between links, and he really would rather _not_ have that kind of thing hit the airwaves just yet.

The show’s not even halfway through before Fincham cracks. To be fair, it is at the sight of a tiny wee jumper on a terrifyingly perfect-looking infant model. Nick can see the charm. The kid’s got gel in his hair and he’s probably only been in the open air for a matter of months. Still. He sticks his tongue out at his team and the starry-eyed father of his child and retains his professionalism.

“That...” Nick says, fading out a track and giving everyone in the room the most stern look he can muster this early in the morning, “Was Robin Thicke with _Blurred Lines_. I’d love to have him on the show, wouldn’t you, Finchy? He’s well fit, that Robin Thicke.”

“I’m more of a Pharrell man, myself,” Matt replies, with his nose in a catalogue.

Nick coughs something that sounds an awful lot like _Traitor, Matt, you’re the worst producer ever_ , and fades into Selena Gomez.

Harry makes a face and then his eyes go big and he’s shoving a spread in Nick’s face. He’s mouthing something that is probably, “ISN’T IT CUTE WE HAVE TO HAVE IT.” Nick looks down and finds himself reading the front of a simple white onesie. It says “DJ Sleep-A-Lot” and. Nick nods, urgently, and Harry _beams_ at him, lifts his hips off the chair to dig into his pocket.

“ _Harry_ ,” Nick hisses, batting at him. “Not _now_ , don’t _order it right now_!” 

Harry blinks at him. “Why?”

“Because we’re on-air, and cameras, and... your identity,” Nick stammers. Harry looks unimpressed. “You can’t just _buy_ baby clothes on a whim,” Nick tacks on, awkwardly. 

“Well,” Harry says, very slowly, “we _are_ having a baby. And if we don’t put clothes on her, she’ll get a cold.”

There’s silence in the studio for a moment before Ian starts a slow clap.

“For the love of god,” Nick says. 

“Stand up to him, Harry,” LMC nods approvingly. “Fight for the right to clothe your child.”

“Oooh, can we add the Beastie Boys to the playlist?” Fiona asks Matt excitedly, and for a moment he even looks like he might be considering it.

“This is chaos,” Nick informs the world at large. “Absolute anarchy.”

Thankfully the team simmers down when they realize they’re actually, you know, on-air, like one does, when it’s one’s job. But Nick can’t help but be aware of the way Harry’s slumped back in his chair, thumbing through baby magazines and watching him with a small smile. 

Nick texts him, _you haven’t won, Styles_ , just to see him dig his phone out of his pocket.

Harry grins over at him.

Nick’s screen flashes, _I think I can wear you down, old man_ , along with a winky emoji and, damn him, a baby bottle.

A few seconds later, they’re followed by a bee emoji. 

;

To apologize for his deviance that morning, and the fact that Fiona’s catalogues somehow ended up on Nick’s coffee table, Harry agrees to take Nick to his favourite hole in the wall Indian restaurant for lunch, and shopping so he can make dinner. 

Nick, in turn, keeps himself occupied. He has a meeting over the phone about the _Sweat The Small Stuff_ taping tomorrow; it’s the first show they’ll be doing without Rochelle, and they’re having more people than usual, with all of Union J on Rickie’s team. Most of the production team knows about Nick’s pregnancy, and they’ve been infinitely gracious, allowing frequent breaks and adjusting everything from the lighting to the height of Nick’s desk to camouflage his growing bump. 

Once the meeting’s done, Nick slips into a jacket and a pair of sunglasses and takes Puppy for a walk, letting her sniff at as many brick walls and telephone poles as she pleases along the way. The pain in his feet and lower back is present but tolerable, and when Nick makes it back home Harry’s already there, puttering about, putting things in a saucepan and humming cheerily. Puppy wags her tail and rounds Harry’s legs as soon as Nick unhooks her leash, and Nick’s struck by just how similar the two of them are.

“Heya, pop star.” Nick hooks an arm around Harry’s bare back, kisses his cheek. Harry smiles and then turns back to the stove with a furrowed-browed look of deep concentration, motioning for Nick to move away. 

“The sauce’s at a very delicate stage,” he informs Nick. “Don’t distract me. It needs my full attention.”

Nick snorts, but moves to put away Puppy’s leash, and to perhaps snag a Diet Coke out of the fridge. He’s been remarkably good today. He does slap at Harry’s bare bottom on the way past, though. It’s too good of an opportunity to pass up.

Harry laughs (Nick’s always thought of it as more like a snort-giggle, but that doesn’t appropriately compliment how adorable it is), and shakes his head, still watching his sauce. 

Nick drinks half his can of Coke before he decides to save the rest for dinner. “Is there anything I can do, then?” He’s been watching Harry’s arse jiggle as he shuffle-dances in front of the stove, and if he doesn’t find something to do before long he’ll get a hard-on just from the looking. Harry’s always had that effect, and Nick is a little relieved to find that even when he’s pregnant and grumpy and tired, Harry’s still as charming. 

“Nah,” Harry says. “Nearly done here. Oh, you might put out the plates and silver.”

Nick nods, taking in a long last glance of Harry’s pert little bum, and then turns to get out his dishes and cutlery. He even gets napkins, which is some kind of miracle, the ability to think of such ordinary items when Harry Styles is doing a bit of twerking in one’s kitchen.

It’s not until later, when they’re sprawling on the sofa with a rerun of The Great British Bake-Off on, that Nick is rewarded for his abstinent resolve. Harry, who has been curled up against Nick’s side, head tipped onto Nick’s shoulder, very slowly begins kissing up Nick’s throat, tiny nipping pecks that make Nick purse his lips to keep from smiling. “Someone’s distracted,” he notes, glancing down at Harry.

“We’ve seen this one,” Harry mumbles, nibbling just under Nick’s ear.

“You don’t wanna see the gingerbread Coliseum?” Nick hums, but it’s a losing battle. Harry shakes his head and kneels on the cushions next to Nick (where he would, perhaps, have tried to straddle Nick’s lap, if it weren’t for the obstacle that Nick’s growing belly has become), drapes both arms over Nick’s shoulders and kisses him, teasingly chaste.

Nick can’t help turning into the kiss, clicking the volume down on the telly remote and bringing his hands up to Harry’s wavy mess of hair instead. Harry nibbles at his lower lip, pulling it between his own teeth and sucking gently before letting it go with a wet noise that goes straight to Nick’s cock. Harry grins like he knows, the little _fiend_ , and leans in closer, pressing his tongue into Nick’s mouth and running the tip along Nick’s teeth. He’s such a kid, honestly, playing around instead of settling in for a serious snog, but Nick loves him for it.

It’s not until Harry pulls away from the kiss entirely that Nick finds a real problem in his short attention span. “You can’t just-” he starts, when Harry leans back and licks his own reddened lips, but his words get caught on the way out his mouth as Harry palms between his legs at his cock, seemingly unfazed by Nick’s belly where it bumps against his forearm.

“I can’t?” Harry pouts, brows furrowed and hand going still at the front of Nick’s pyjama pants.

“I,” Nick says, blinking, and clears his throat. “You can _definitely_ do whatever.” He can feel his cheeks heating up at Harry’s grin, and god, Nick’s always loved that about Harry. For as much as he can be a silly, love-struck teenager, he can get Nick to feel like one too. He never leaves Nick too far behind. 

“Good,” Harry chirps, and begins the slow, painstaking, and frankly hilarious process of folding himself down into the space between the sofa and Nick’s coffee table. His knees bump the cushions, and there’s high chances he’ll get a bruise on his tailbone from knocking it against the edge of the table, but he’s so _determined_ Nick gives him a hand when he settles between Nick’s legs on his knees, his feet under the table. He doesn’t waste a moment once he’s there, either. At this point he seems to have made his peace with the constant presence of Nick’s belly, even when things take a turn for the sexy. He drops a single peck of a kiss above Nick’s bellybutton, smiling proudly to himself, and gets to work on tugging Nick’s waistband down, humming approvingly when he notices Nick has gone commando.

“Pesky elastic waistbands,” Nick mumbles, running his fingers through his own hair, pushing it off his forehead haphazardly.

Harry nods seriously, but he isn’t looking at Nick. Instead, he’s grinning at Nick’s stomach again. “Don’t wanna squish miss Bee, do we,” he asks, in that obnoxiously sweet tone he usually reserves for Puppy, or when Nick’s had a bad hair day and he’s trying to get a smack to the bum. 

“Ugh,” Nick says. “Please don’t do that, don’t acknowledge her, we’re. Ugh. Harry.” 

“I’m trying to balance my attention,” Harry shrugs, wrapping a hand around Nick’s cock and leaning forward to lick around the crown, suck at the head while he presses his thumb against the vein on the underside.

Nick huffs and braces his hands on the couch cushions. He manages one last frown at Harry. “Well _don’t_. I want your attention. You’re sucking _me_ off right now.” 

Harry rolls his eyes, and Nick wishes he could Vine it, honestly, the ripple of his eyelashes and the flash of his pupils, his pink mouth a perfect ‘o’ around the head of Nick’s cock. Pulling off with a slurp (“and... cut!” Nick’s brain supplies. It’d go viral.), Harry presses Nick’s dick up against his belly, glances up at him. 

“Must you?” Nick groans. “I distinctly remember an occasion when a particular young lad refused to so much as get spunk on my stomach, and now you’re _defiling the temple_.” 

Harry’s tongue peeks out from behind his teeth as he laughs. “And a certain DJ told me t’get over it, remember? Just relax a bit, yeah? If you hate it I’ll stop.” 

 _It’s more about the fact that you still want it when I’m morphing into a whale_ , Nick thinks, but he’d rather not ruin a perfectly good blowjob with _feelings_. “I’ll endure,” he sniffs. When he looks up, they’re still trying to make gingerbread landmarks on the telly, and he grabs for the remote, switches it off. The very last thing he needs is to accidentally develop a gingerbread fetish. It’d be the worst kinda Pavlov’s bell around the hols.

Thankfully, Harry doesn’t seem to pick up on Nick’s distressed thoughts on sexual attraction to spiced baked goods. But, he’s unfortunately adept at sensing when Nick is uncomfortable in his own skin, it seems, because he moves both big hands from Nick’s hips up to his belly. Splaying a palm on either of Nick’s sides, just below his ribs, he rubs his thumbs across the curves of the bump. It’s soothing, or it would be if Nick weren’t thinking about stretch marks.

“Hey,” Harry whispers. “We don’t have to. I just, like, really, really wanted to suck your cock, y’know?”

Nick tips his chin into his chest, pets at Harry’s curls above his ear. “You should always get what you want, pop star,” he says, pulling a funny face to try and lighten the mood. The crummiest part about being pregnant, he’s found, is all the pesky emotions that fight their way into even the simplest things like morning tea or a blowjob.

Harry tips his head into the pressure of Nick’s fingers, eyelashes flickering against his cheek for a moment. “Just want you happy,” he mumbles, because he’s Harry, and he’s uselessly sweet like that. Because he’s Harry, though, he’s also aware of the way it makes Nick stiffen, incurably a little uncomfortable with that level of intimacy, and he looks up and grins. “Just wanna suck your brains out through your prick right now, yeah?”

“I’ll take one for the team, then,” Nick shrugs, quirking an eyebrow and tipping his hips up. He’s not fully hard, didn’t manage to get there before the _feelings_ descended upon them, but Harry likes getting him there well enough. Giving Nick’s belly one last quick kiss, he licks his palm before getting it around Nick’s cock again and stroking him slowly.

Harry’s crouched between Nick’s legs like it isn’t even a hardship, the position or the work to get Nick hard, and Nick could swear from his glance downwards at Harry’s mouth, twitching at the corners, that he’s still smiling. “Not natural,” he grumbles, and reaches for Harry’s quiff, flopping into his eyes without any of the product he uses on days when he has to leave the house. 

Harry hums agreeably, _why yes, I am a little demon, Nick, how right you are_ ; Nick can nearly hear him saying it. Nick remembers, a bit fuzzily, a night when he’d been rather drunk and insisted on taking a good five minutes to work his hands all through Harry’s curly mess just to make sure there weren’t horns hidden in it somewhere.

Nick can’t keep his eyes off Harry’s mouth; he’s ridiculously good at this, using his tongue against the underside and pursing his lips beneath Nick’s cockhead as he pulls up and then moves right back down. Nick doesn’t even mind that when Harry takes him all the way down, his belly’s in his line of vision, and he appreciates the gentle pat at his ribs from Harry, the lazy smile when he pulls off and his chin’s shiny with spit.

“Missed this,” Harry says, and his voice is hoarse, scratchy from Nick’s cock. It’s a nice thought, twists the arousal up tight in Nick’s stomach. He pushes at the crown of Harry’s head, and Harry goes down easy, eyes closing peacefully. Nick can’t help but let his own eyes slide shut, too, tip his head back on the sofa. He’s not going to last, but Harry won’t mind if Nick forgets to warn him. Nick thinks he might even like it. Harry’s a bit odd like that. Odd and perfect for Nick, when Nick lets himself think about it. 

“Me too, popstar,” Nick says. “Me too.”

;

Later, when they’re tucked up into bed courtesy of Harry’s superman-like post-orgasm skills, Nick pinches his nipples (all four of them, clockwise) and says, “You little shit, you planned that.”

Harry hums, pleased-sounding, from beneath Nick’s chin, where he’s playing kitten and pretending to be asleep. 

“You _planned_ that,” Nick says, “as like, some sort of _embrace your body_ exercise. Straight from the self help books, I suspect, Styles. It’s not on, not on at all.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Harry giggles, words coming out all smushy against Nick’s collarbone.

“Like shagging a chubby bloke in front of a mirror and making him watch himself to see how hot it is,” Nick says. “You’re the worst.”

“Mm,” Harry says, and his wide wet mouth closes on Nick’s chest, sucking a loud kiss to his slightly sweaty skin. 

Nick grunts. “You’re like, whatsit? Stockholming me into embracing my pregnant physique.” 

“You’re saying that like it _worked_ ,” Harry mumbles, rests his chin on Nick’s breastbone and blinks slowly up at him, cheeks dimpled as he smiles.

“I’ve work in the morning,” Nick rolls his eyes. “ _And_ I’ll need a shower. So let’s sleep, yeah?”

Harry looks altogether too knowing as he nods and settles in against Nick’s side.

;

On the _Sweat The Small Stuff_ set, they’ve raised Nick’s desk another inch and a half when he comes in that Friday. Harry has tucked himself away somewhere backstage, probably lying in wait for unsuspecting PAs or other victims to his charm.

Union J are blessedly one of the better behaved boybands (not that Nick’s about to point any fingers) and he pops into their dressing room as they’re having their hair messed with, frozen into rock-solid quiffs or artfully tousled. He’s only slightly surprised to find Harry in there with them, extolling the virtues of a balanced diet in his deep, slow voice, gesturing with a banana, and generally doing an excellent job at blending in with his kind.

“Hiya, Grim!” chirps one of the Js, and the others perk up and say their hellos. Nick’s found that the bigger his belly gets, the more likely people are to approach him like he’s the ninth wonder of the world (the eighth being Iggy Azalea’s bottom), and it apparently even applies to teenage boys. 

The last time Nick had seen the Js was for Big Weekend, and they’d just been alerted to the fact that Nick was “great with child” (thanks, Finchy) and to treat him “delicately, like a petal” (really, Ian). They’d been shy but offered their congratulations as they chatted backstage. 

This time, they’re a bit more obvious. Josh’s ridiculous pouty face lights up into a pleased grin, JJ puts down his phone, and George is _definitely_ clutching Harry’s arm.

“Hullo, lads,” Nick says graciously. “Just popping in to say how lovely it is to see you all here on our humble set.” He makes some sort of gesture with his hands and then feels awkward about it, stuffs them into his pockets so he can feel his tummy. It’s somehow comforting.

“It’s great to be here,” Jaymi says, genuine despite his smirk. He’s in the middle of getting his hair turned into an angled wave of some sort; Nick doesn’t think he could be as chipper if he were in his place. “Y’alright?”

“I am,” Nick nods, jerks his chin at Harry. “I’ve got a boy-slave for the week, warms up my meals and things. Resourceful, that one.”

“I wish I had a boy-slave,” JJ says ponderously, looking down at his phone again. Jaymi rolls his eyes and George giggles a bit. 

“You practically have two,” Jaymi points out. “You live in our house and Olly and I do all the cooking and laundry and roll you out of bed some mornings.” 

“Oh,” says JJ, as if he honestly hadn't thought of it before..

Honestly, Nick’s inclined to think that one might not be the brightest bulb in the marquee. He’s well looked-after, though, by the looks of it.

“I’m not a boy-slave,” Harry interjects with a put-upon frown. “I’m more of a-”

“A baby daddy for hire,” Nick interrupts him, and Josh and George burst into laughter. It takes JJ a little bit longer, and Jaymi tries to muffle his, lest he be burnt with the hot tool in their hair stylist’s hand.

Harry doesn’t look as amused. “Is that it,” he says, flatly, and picks at the stem of his banana with his bitten-off fingernails. 

Nick’s relatively sure the squirming in his belly is either baby Bee or just the leftover Thai they had for dinner before getting to the studios. Relatively. “Well,” he says lamely. “Anyway, it was lovely to see all of you, I suppose I’ll see you again on set in a few minutes. Apologies for anything I say without thinking.” He bites his lip, looking at Harry, but Harry is apparently much too busy peeling his banana to notice.

“Cheers, mate,” Josh waves, ducking the stylist’s attempts to fluff up his quiff any further. 

“Thanks for having us,” Jaymi agrees, sticking out his hand. Nick shakes it and it’s probably rude, to never once look at the person whose hand you’re shaking. But Harry’s folded himself up on the sofa with George, and they’re talking about something to do with... ducks? Possibly? Hobbits? Nick isn’t sure.

;

The actual filming goes well enough; Nick stutters on his opening monologue and they have to give it a second go, and at one point Frankie has an adorable sneezing fit, but the lighting people have made even more adjustments to help camouflage Nick’s bump, which is reassuring. They go on break an hour and a half in and Nick appreciates getting to take his jacket off and sit in the shadows, overheated from the stage lights.

He’d love to go look for Harry, wherever he might have hidden, but his feet are a bit swollen and he’s feeling entitled. He’s got a lukewarm cuppa, and he almost spills it all over his trousers when he spots Harry in a dark corner, making small talk with a PA.

“Baby daddy for hire, huh,” says Jaymi, quirking an eyebrow as he sits down beside Nick. Nick does spill his tea, then, but only a little, and thankfully only on his shoe. He glares at Jaymi all the same. 

Jaymi looks back at him blandly and offers a napkin. He takes a slow sip of his own tea. 

“Don’t even,” Nick grumbles, because Jaymi’s got one of those faces that are hard to stay angry at. He’s feeling terrible enough as it is.

“Sorry, mate,” Jaymi shrugs, raises his hands in surrender. “It’s just- I mean, not to overshare or anything, but you’re _really_ lucky.”

Nick looks back to where Harry is presumably telling the worst joke in the history of the world. “I’m not sure I see how that counts as- ah.” It takes actually saying it to realize what the little boybander might mean. Nick does find it a bit odd that apparently there’s a whole rash of teen pop icons in the world whose sole desire is for child-rearing. “Are you, ah... trying?” He winces.

“Yeah,” Jaymi nods, twists the band on his ring finger. “My boy’s really into kids; we’ve always said we’d want ‘em, y’know?”

Nick _hmmm_ s in what he hopes is a properly sympathetic manner. “Well, we didn’t exactly plan ours,” he says, “so, you know. Always the chance of a surprise!” 

Jaymi laughs (politely, Nick can tell) and shrugs. “I’m just saying, mate, like, he’s really gone for you. I won’t tell you how to live or whatever, but... appreciate that, yeah? You’re a lucky man, Grimmy.”

In the time it takes Nick to steal a glance at Harry again and try to come up with something to say, anything at this point, Jaymi’s gone, off to dispense his pearls of gay wisdom upon some other poor, unsuspecting bastard.

Nick should’ve seen it coming. It’s always the shortest member of the boyband.

;

Harry’s quiet as they drive home. If Nick thinks hard enough about it, it’s a little predictable. But Nick doesn’t really want to think about it at all. Just the possibility of actually spending any time on the topic is enough to make his nose plug up and his eyes prickle. 

They’re halfway back to Nick’s house when Harry finally speaks up. “Are you hungry?”

“Bit, yeah,” Nick sighs, smoothing down the front of his t-shirt. It’s a big, floppy one that doesn’t quite look as big and floppy anymore.

“Want me to stop for something?” Harry offers, both hands on the steering wheel, eyes on the road. He’s usually _awful_ at actually watching where he’s going when Nick’s in the car.

“Wouldn’t say no to a kabob,” Nick shrugs. He’s distinctly aware of the fact that their hands are not entwined over the gear shift like they so often are. “There’s that place by-”

“Yeah,” Harry nods. “I know. Do you need a drink? We’ve only got water and Diet Coke at the house, and I don’t think you should drink caffeine this late.” 

Nick pulls his lip into his mouth, and although he _knows_ he’s supposed to have cravings, he sort of wishes he didn’t feel so guilty about it. “D’you reckon they’d have lemonade? Like, not the fizzy kind, just the water and lemon and sugar stuff.”

“There’s that One Stop down the road, if not,” Harry nods, taking a turn without his blinker on.

They’re eerily, uncomfortably quiet until Harry finds a parking spot near the restaurant. He leaves the car on, grabs his wallet from the cupholder and leans across the console to drop a kiss on Nick’s cheek and mutter, “Back soon.”

Nick rubs his cheek like a total sap as Harry shuts the door and disappears into the dim-lit take out joint. He’s tired and now that he’s mentioned lemonade, his stomach is nearly cramping with how bad he wants it. And there’s the whole issue of Harry obviously being displeased about something. _Something_ , Nick emphasizes to his pregnant brain. _It could be anything._  

He texts Gillian on impulse, _am I even more of a prick now that I’m knocked up signs point to yes but I trust u_

Gillian doesn’t reply in the next twenty seconds, so Nick copies and pastes the message into a new text to Matt. It takes him a whole five minutes to reply, and when he does, it’s a, _Whatever you did fix it before he leaves for America._  

Nick wants to chuck his phone out the window.

Harry gets back, though, before Nick can figure out how to take off the safety lock (seriously, Styles) on the passenger side window, plastic bag in hand but no lemonade in sight. “Their’s was fizzy,” he explains, handing Nick the bag. “Is One Stop alright?”

“It’s fine,” Nick hums, busies himself with pulling out the styrofoam boxes, passing Harry’s over and taking a too-big bite of chicken and grilled onion before he can say anything stupid.

Harry digs his phone out of his pocket and spends a quiet minute texting before he slides it between his thighs and turns the key in the ignition. “I’ll just eat when we’re home,” he says. “How’s yours?”

“Delicious,” Nick says, although it’s pretty mediocre. Sometimes he swears his taste buds are just fucking with him, making him want something and then being unimpressed when he indulges them. 

“Great,” Harry says.

There’s another uncomfortable stretch of silence, and this time Nick’s tempted to reach and turn on the radio, but his fingers are greasy and the few napkins he dug out of the bag aren’t helping. The chips that came with the kabob are equally pitiful, and Nick almost jumps in his seat when Harry clears his throat, because apparently they’ve parked and he’s gonna go get Nick the stupid lemonade he isn’t even sure he wants anymore. This time, Harry doesn’t even lean over for a kiss.

Nick’s phone dings and he glances down at it, swipes it unlocked in spite of the greasy fingers. _u asshole,_ Gills has replied, finally. _yes but what’ve u done now??_

Any other time Nick would yell about why his friends always assume it’s something _he’s_ done, but at the moment he’s got sticky fingers and a burning throat and he’s felt increasingly shitty throughout an evening of filming, so he just whimpers a little. 

Harry pulls the door open and slumps into the driver’s seat, holding out a bottle of lemonade with some fancy organic or fair trade or _expensive as hell_ label on it. “You’d better try it now, if it’s shit I’ll go get a different one,” he mumbles.

“You don’t have to do that,” Nick sighs. It sounds awfully close to a whine, to his horror- and takes the bottle. It is, of course, impossible to twist the cap with his dirty hands, so Harry takes it back and does it for him, holds the cap and looks on warily as Nick takes a sip.

As it turns out, sometimes posh organic labels _aren’t_ automatically synonymous with _Tastes Like Dirt_. This time, it’s more like _Delicious Sunshine In A Bottle_. “I think I might be having a religious experience,” he says, very slowly, and licks his lips.

Harry exhales and drops the bottle cap in the cupholder with his wallet. “Good to hear,” he smiles, tentative. “Home, then?”

Nick makes an agreeable sound around the bottle-lip of his heavenly nectar. Maybe things are looking up. 

;

“Nick,” Harry says, and things aren’t looking up so much any more. They’re in the bathroom, and Harry’s just washed his face and Nick is setting down his toothbrush, contemplating a shower. “Nick,” Harry repeats, just as seriously. “Can we talk?”

As it seems, Nick won’t have to suffer through working up the courage to confront Harry, as it’s been decided for him. “I might need a seat,” he says, defeated.

Harry shakes his head, frowns. “Don’t _say_ that,” he mumbles.

“No, like...” Nick’s hand finds his belly, instinctual, “I need a seat ‘cos of Bee.”

“Oh,” Harry nods, bites his lips against an embarrassed smile and steps aside to let Nick through.

Nick slowly makes his way to their bedroom, slumping onto the side of the mattress and rubbing at his stomach, thighs. Everything’s begun to hurt, and it seems like it’s gotten ten times worse just in the week Harry’s been home. Not that Nick thinks it’s Harry’s _fault_. According to the books it’s just going to be that kind of uncomfortable for the next several months. 

Harry trails after him rubbing at the back of his neck, and he settles beside Nick carefully, folding his long legs up and reaching out to rub at Nick’s forearm. “Now?”

“Yeah,” Nick hums, counting his inhales and exhales in his head. He’s tired, but the longer he thinks about it, the more convinced he is he won’t be able to sleep without fixing this first.

“Nick,” Harry starts, tracing infinities with his fingertips on Nick’s forearm, “listen, I get that you’re... moody, and stressed out, and achy, but. That was really hurtful, earlier, when you called me that in front of the Js.”

“I wasn’t _trying_ to be hurtful,” Nick says. He’s never been a fidgety type, but he twists his hands at the edge of his shirt, picks at the sheets beneath him. “I was just nervous. It was supposed to be a laugh.”

Harry looks up at him and blinks, slowly, once and then twice. “It wasn’t that funny to me,” he says, smiling sadly. “And I know we said that you’d just wait, a bit longer, to tell people. But couldn’t we at least... I thought at least you would tell...” he gestures vaguely. After a second, he exhales, deeply. “I know you’re scared, Nick. But you have me, you know?”

Nick can’t look Harry in the eye, too scared he’ll burst into tears, but he searches out one of his hands and holds onto it for dear life. “I’m sorry,” he says, slowly, like rushing the words out might break the delicate balance required to keep the sting in his eyes from turning into anything more. “I should’ve just - just gone with it, god, they _obviously_ knew.”

Harry leans into him, pressing their palms together. His is a little bit sweaty, and Nick is thankful for it, that small reminder that Harry’s as human as he is. “It’s fine,” he says, thickly. “I - I forgive you.” 

“It isn’t really fine, but it won’t happen again,” Nick hums, closes the gap between them by tipping his forehead into Harry’s. “Could I still call you baby daddy without the second bit?”

“Please,” Harry whispers. “It’s just- I overreacted, I think, but it was so awful, Nick, hearing you say that. I don’t know why, it really surprised me, I guess. But I just thought, what if the baby heard? I don’t want her to ever think that- that I don’t love you, because I _do_. I don’t want her to worry about that.”

Nick sniffs, laces his fingers with Harry’s and pulls his hand up with his own to dab at the corner of his eye with his knuckles. “You’ve done it, Styles,” he mutters, smiles fondly. “I love you, yeah? And Bee loves you, I’m almost sure she’s developed telepathy of some sort, ‘cos either she’s got some _really_ well-timed kicking habits or she gets really excited when you’re around. Can’t blame her, you know.”

“Is she kicking now?” Harry asks, rather snuffly himself. 

Instead of telling him, Nick places Harry’s hand against his belly. Sure enough, Bee has been tapping about for a while, now, gentle knocks like she’s curious, wanting to be a part of the conversation. “You’d think she’d be tired,” Nick rolls his eyes. “Don’t think she’s got what it takes to host an early radio show, this one, she’s a bit of a night owl.”

“Silly girl,” Harry mumbles, settling his chin on Nick’s shoulder and looking down at their clasped hands on his bump. “She should let her Papa sleep. He’s got important things to do.” He glances at Nick. “Well, not tomorrow. Other than let me love you.”

Nick sighs, as if it’s a hardship, and thankfully Harry looks away, back down at Nick’s belly, before he notices the tears on his cheeks. 

;

Nick wakes up sometime after five a.m. Harry has turned over onto his stomach in his sleep, head pressed up against Nick’s shoulder, drooling a wet spot through Nick’s tee shirt sleeve. It’s nice, really, compared to the nights Nick’s woken up alone, achey and uncomfortable. His legs are still cramping and his back is still sore as hell, but Nick doesn’t even begrudge the fact that he can’t really move. 

Until he has to piss, anyway, and then he shoves Harry away as gently as he can manage, and hauls himself up from the bed. He’s been thinking about getting a crane installed to move him around the flat. Somehow Nick doesn’t think the BBC would see that as a work related reimbursement. 

After a wee and a quick hand wash, Nick stands in the bedroom door a long time just looking. It’s not that Harry is ever _hard_ to look at, but there’s an energy and a shine to him when he’s awake, whether it’s bouncing around Nick’s apartment with Puppy or hunching over Nick’s belly for a goodnight snog. It makes it difficult for Nick to focus on him too long without his throat closing up, eyes running teary. When he’s asleep, Nick can stare longer; he can take in the curve of his back under the covers and the tiny rise of his bum, the twitch of his feet at the bottom of the bed, the curl of his fingers on Nick’s pillow. 

Nick thinks with dread of how many times he’s nearly lost the boy in his bed, thinks even back to their conversation the night before. He doesn’t realize he’s rubbing his stomach until Bee kicks back at him, a sharp nudge against the center of his palm. Nick glances down, reflexive, and nods. “I know, baby girl. I’ve gotta sack up.”

;

“I’m not sure why you felt you had to call me at... half five on a Saturday?” Nick’s agent, Caroline, sounds distinctly half-asleep.

Nick takes a sip of tea and sets it down beside his laptop on the kitchen table. “I just thought I should let you know we need to discuss baby announcements. _The_ baby announcement, that is.” 

Caroline groans. 

“What?” Nick says. “You said to keep you updated! I’m ready now!”

“Nick,” Caroline says, “Congratulations, you wanker. I’m hanging up on you now. Call me back Monday morning during business hours.”

;

By the time Harry rolls out of bed and pads into the kitchen with disarmingly adorable sleepy eyes and rumpled hair, Nick may or may not have made a Pinterest account and started amassing pictures of beautiful, ridiculously expensive nurseries.

“Morning, Haz,” he mutters absentmindedly, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose and taking a sip from his tea mug. He feels a little (a lot) like he fits some pretty hilarious stereotypes, but he’s totally owning the look, thanks.

Harry moves towards the stove, shuffling like all of his limbs are too big for him, and Nick watches out of his peripheral vision and hides a smile against the rim of his tea cup. Harry nearly knocks his head into the exhaust fan over the stove top and then swivels, leans against the oven door to look at Nick. 

Pretending to be busy is actually far less difficult when Nick is actually invested in the organization of potential nursery furnishings by colour palette. 

“Morning,” Harry says, slow like the syrupy bit that’s left at the bottom of your cuppa when you’ve drunk all but the last sip and the leftover sugar. 

Nick hums, clicking a board dedicated to jungle-themed nurseries open in a new tab. He doesn’t particularly like jungle-themed nurseries, but he isn’t _against_ them, either. Monkeys are cute. They could even throw a lion in there, perhaps. It gives him an internal monologue, at any rate, as Harry loses his already-thin patience, stalking over with a wrinkle between his brows.

Nick can’t help his grin, lifting his head to say, “And how did _you_ sleep, sunshine?” But instead of a kiss, Harry’s shoving at the back of his chair, turning Nick around, and dropping to the floor between Nick’s knees. He does kiss Nick, then, warm on the inside of his knee, and Nick stares down at him. “What are you doing, then, Harold?”

“I wanna suck you,” Harry mutters, looking half asleep, his head flopped against Nick’s thigh. He licks his lips.

Nick leans back in his chair and rubs his hands on his thighs, rumpling the worn soft material of the boxers he’d pulled on to putter about in. “Yeah?” he says. He feels warmer inside than he can recall within recent memory, more content and settled than he’s been maybe ever. It’s something to do with Harry, yeah, but Nick knows it probably also has to do with his own newfound resolve. He’s not going to fuck this up. Not for him, and not for Harry, but especially not for the baby they’re having. For Bee. But deciding on the colour of her first bedroom can probably wait twenty minutes. 

“Mmm-hmmm,” Harry nods, and hooks his fingers in Nick’s waistband, tugs his boxers down when he doesn’t object. Nick lifts his bum off the seat and settles with his bare arse right at the edge of the seat. He’s pretty sure he’ll have a red indent from it by the time they’re done, but it’s the least of his worries when Harry’s letting his boxers fall around his ankles and pulling his dick into his mouth, not even half hard.

Nick makes a weak sound, bites it back and sucks on his lower lip as he watches Harry work his mouth further down on his cock. Harry’s eyelashes are fluttering, eyes half shut, and he looks blissed out already, as if this was the sole reason he dragged himself out of bed. Nick nearly laughs, because it shouldn’t be this goddamn _hot_ , Harry barefoot and bare-assed on his kitchen floor, sleep still in the corners of his eyes, but he’s got his big hands pressing Nick’s thighs open for him and sucking his cock as sweet as his dopey voice had been a second ago, and it is, anyway.

When Nick looks up for a second, somehow managing to tear his eyes away from the lovely scene Harry and his dick make, he giggles breathlessly, hysterically, at the creamsicle-orange nursery on his screen. Harry hums around his cockhead and Nick’s attention snaps right back to him, tangling a hand in Harry’s bed head, twisting unruly curls around his knuckles.

Harry tilts his head and drags his mouth down the side of Nick’s cock, sucking kisses to the hot, sticky skin as he goes, and presses his nose briefly to the dark curls at the base, inhales shakily. Nick imagines his dick twitching between his legs, determines that at least once before Harry leaves they’ll have to do this properly, in bed, where he can get a hand on Harry and _feel_ the heat and the way he fattens up at Nick’s praise and attention. 

For now, he’s made his peace with the fact that this probably won’t last long. He tugs gently at Harry’s hair and he sucks Nick down again, uses his own spit to stroke at the base as he mouths at Nick’s cockhead, rubbing his tongue over the slit. It’s dirty, and a lot unfair, but it feels too good to really _bother_ Nick.

“Close,” Nick mutters, nudging his fingertips against Harry’s scalp, and Harry takes him deeper, hollows his cheeks like he _wants_ it. Nick’s a little bit worried about what will be of his poor brain once he nuts off this early in the morning, but he reckons he’ll just have to endure.

When he _does_ come it’s with a gasp and a shudder, spilling inside Harry’s mouth and holding onto his hair, his other hand fisted at his side. Still sleepy-eyed, Harry makes a rolling, happy sound (is he _purring?_ Christ) and strokes him with a loose fist, laps up the dribble of come that escapes his lips, running down the underside of Nick’s cock.

Nick stares at him incredulously and flops his hand in resignation. “Well, that’s it,” he says. “I’m done. Can’t expect me to actually _function_ today, Styles.” 

Harry laughs, throaty and rough, and wipes the back of his hand across his wide, wet lips. “I’ve big plans for today,” he says, mock-disappointedly. 

“Cancel them,” Nick shrugs. “I don’t even remember my name.”

“It’s Nick,” Harry says, fondly, and kisses Nick’s knee. “And I don’t have any plans.”

Nick tousles his hair and scoots back in his chair. He’s lost a bit of feeling in his arse. “Well,” he says, “if you haven’t got plans, I suppose there’s time to do you now.”

“Oh,” Harry grins, wobbly, and nods. He almost bangs his head on the edge of the breakfast table as he gets back on his feet, and Nick’s so out of it he _coos_ at the sight of him and the flush creeping down his neck and disappearing past his collar and his cock curving up against his tummy. Harry’s cheeks turn pink, and Nick finally kicks his boxers off completely, opens his legs so Harry can stand between them.

Harry looks nearly shy, pressing in close and curling a hand around his cock. He’s in an old shirt of Nick’s that’s short on him, and his hair is standing up in every direction from Nick’s tugging. “I can just,” he mutters, tips his chin in what’s obviously supposed to be a significant gesture.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Nick scoffs, because he might be dazed but not enough to keep him from getting Harry off. He wraps an arm around Harry’s waist and pulls him closer, gives his bum a friendly squeeze as he leans in carefully, minding the bump, and kisses Harry’s hip. “C’mon,” he insists, batting Harry’s hand away with his free one and giving his cock a few long, slow tugs, grinning up at him.

Harry inhales sharply and stares right back at Nick, lower lip sucked between his teeth and trembling slightly. He pitches forward, nearly startling Nick away but catching himself with both hands on the back of the chair, behind Nick’s shoulders, so he’s a long, lean curve over Nick. “Can you,” he starts, stutters, as Nick digs his thumb into the little indent below his cockhead. “Can you- s’dry, Nick, please.”

“Getting demanding,” Nick hums, but he leans in to mouth at Harry’s cockhead sloppily. He can’t stay folded up like that, his belly in the way and his lower back aching, but he makes the best of it while he’s down there, even lets go of Harry’s cock to spit in his palm for good measure, hoping it’ll be enough to ease the friction. “Better?” he asks, stroking Harry a little easier, swiping his fingers over the wet head.

Harry just whimpers, hips twitching but not forcing any closer to Nick’s face. It’s an admirable display of restraint, Nick thinks. He wouldn’t be so polite. The chair back creaks from Harry’s grip on it, and Nick laughs, proud and fond. “Let’s not break the furniture, Harold,” he says, giving Harry’s cock a good tug, pulling the foreskin up and rubbing it around the crown with his thumb. Harry’s knees sway, knocking Nick’s. 

“Nick,” he whines, voice cracking, and Nick curls in on himself to lick at the slit of Harry’s cock, suck the head into his mouth to rest on his tongue. Harry gives a full-body shudder, and Nick squeezes his arse warningly, but doesn’t move back. He keeps on sucking at the head as he wanks the rest with his hand, and it seems like barely a second before Harry’s swearing and pushing off from the back of the chair, stepping backwards and knocking into the edge of the table in his haste to reach for his own dick and cover the head with his palm as he comes, stroking himself desperately through it. 

“Good lad,” Nick says, slumping back in the chair, and... staring openly, adoringly, at Harry’s splotchy cheeks and bitten lips and green, green eyes. 

Harry stares right back, panting heavily and chest heaving, and when his hand slows on his cock and his eyelids lower he laughs, breathless and relieved, slumping against the table. “Shit. Nick.”

“Yeah,” Nick agrees, because he can’t think of anything worthwhile to add, except that he’s really fucking glad it’s Harry. Then he takes a breath. “I’m really fucking glad it’s you,” he says. 

Harry’s eyes blink up and he looks at Nick a little blearily, licks his lips. “Yeah?” he asks, breathless.

“Yeah,” Nick says. “Also I was thinking for the nursery we should really pick a colour she won’t hate when she’s older.”

Harry groans and swipes a hand over his face. “ _Nick_.”

“No, no,” Nick says, quickly. “Look, I’ll show you.”

In the end, Harry pulls up a chair and puts on the kettle, and Nick shows him the three different boards he’s created for Bee’s nursery. There’s one for colour schemes, one for furniture, and one for clothes, because he kept finding adorable outfits that Harry needed to see. 

Harry knocks his head against Nick’s shoulder, gently, and smiles over at him. “You really have been thinking about this,” he says. He sounds rather too smug for Nick’s liking.

“Put that face away,” Nick tells him. “I just. It’s research.”

“Research is good,” Harry nods in agreement. “This way I’ll know what to get for her.”

“Hmmm?” Nick questions, distracted by a set of woodland creature-themed hooded towels.

“I figured,” Harry says, slow and considering, “that since I’ll be away for a bit, I could like, get some stuff and send it back to you, y’know? Like, for her nursery, or little shoes and stuff.”

Nick bites his lip and glances down at the bump. Bee is finally stirring, apparently ready for her day of kidney-kicking and internal aerobics to begin, and it’s nearly a comfort now, to feel her making her presence known. “You don’t have to,” he points out. “It’s not like I can’t afford things for her, now. I’m a big-timing BBC personality, don’t you know, popstar?”

Harry rolls his eyes and slides an arm around Nick’s back, his hand curving at his side, fingers touching the swell of Nick’s tummy. “I know that. But she’s not just yours, like. She is yours. But she’s mine too, yeah? Ours, and I think we should like, buy her stuff together.” 

“As together as it gets with you across the pond,” Nick nods, pecking a kiss to the corner of Harry’s mouth agreeably.

Harry grins as he pulls away, turning back to the laptop screen and putting on his best (mediocre) valley girl accent. “Woo! The power of Pinterest, baby.”

“Go make me breakfast,” Nick groans, poking his side.

;

They nap that afternoon, and Nick is both thankful that Harry’s a deep sleeper, unperturbed by Nick’s restlessness, and envious of the ease at which he drops off. He’d propped Nick’s feet up on a pillow before he passed out, though, so at least Nick feels less bloated than he had the night before. 

The quiet of their room, Harry’s steady breathing and Puppy’s huffing little sleepy noises from the foot of their bed, make for a lazy, mellow mood. Nick thinks sleepily about the past week; the highs and lows of having Harry around. Their multiple discussions about announcing the baby publically aren’t as nerve-wracking in hindsight. Nick isn’t as energized about it as he had been that morning, calling Caroline on an impulse, but he also isn’t as frightened of it. He’ll call Monday morning, after the show, and they’ll meet with Miranda from the BBC and maybe he can even get Finchy to sit in again. 

He’s got other plans for the week ahead, too: he’s having dinner with Lily and her family on Tuesday, and on the weekend Gemma’s coming down to take him to lunch. He and Harry had skyped with her earlier that week, to announce that Bee was, in fact, a Bee, and she’d insisted on making plans, claiming she needed to see her favorite niece desperately. Nick knows it’s probably because Gemma understands him a little too well, knows he’ll be sulky and prone to holing up in his house alone with Harry’s departure. Regardless, it’s sweet of her. Nick’s rather fond of Styleses, with their big, soulful eyes and slow, measured words. 

Harry takes a shuddering deep breath and his hand creeps over Nick’s stomach in his sleep. Nick closes his eyes at the welcome warmth of his palm, feels Bee stir languidly. Like him, she seems to be utterly content just basking in the contact, the proximity. Having Harry this close is something Nick’s never going to take for granted. 

They have dinner plans that night. In a few hours Nick will have to get up and Harry will cajole him into a shower. Nick will, in turn, whine until Harry agrees to wash his hair, and they’ll have to haul themselves out to hurry and get dressed. Nick can see it as if it’s already happened; their laughter and the hot water getting in their eyes, Harry’s wet hair in his face and his awed smile as he looks down between them at Nick’s belly. 

They’ll probably be late to the restaurant. Gills and Aimee and Ian will all roll their eyes. Nick won’t give a shit.

;

The following morning Nick _still_ doesn’t give a shit about anything other than his baby girl and his baby daddy. He’s as close to nirvana as he’s ever been, really; naked and a bit sticky and crusty in places, curled up on his side with Harry plastered against his back, an arm draped over Nick’s side to press his palm to Nick’s belly. 

He doesn’t think about how it’s Sunday, and Harry leaves bright and early, so early the sun might not even be up yet, in fact, on Monday. He doesn’t think about how Harry will be gone for months, and only come back when Nick’s just about ready to pop, or about how he’ll have to leave again soon after to continue taking over the world, one 3D movie, fragrance, and nail polish line at a time. Nick doesn’t think about anything at all but the slow rise and fall of Harry’s chest against his back and his toes against Nick’s calves and his hand twitching slightly over Nick’s bump. Over Bee.

It’s nearly half an hour before Harry wakes up. Nick’s not even absolutely sure he is awake, because Harry can be as restless as Puppy in his sleep, complete with snuffling and squirming. But after a few moments of Harry’s cock being nudged up against his arse, Harry’s fingers curling on Nick’s stomach, Harry goes still, and Nick can feel his breathing change. 

“Good morning,” he whispers. “Is this the bit where you pretend to be asleep so you can keep humping my bum, Styles?”

“Loaded question,” Harry mumbles, his voice gravelly and deep against Nick’s nape.

“Not as loaded as you are,” Nick sighs. “Like- that wasn’t a money joke, for once, popstar, that was a, your weapon is cocked and loaded, and. Ugh. Matt would get it.”

“Are you comparing me to Finchy?” Harry sounds considerably more awake, and far too amused for the time of morning and considering Nick can hardly manage to arrange words in a sentence.

Nick would love to roll over, but that would entail crushing either the baby or the baby daddy, neither of which he’s eager to do. “I’m saying you’re like, half asleep, and it’s not even like you’re good at actually _funny_ jokes at your best,” he hums. “I like you better than Matt, though, wouldn’t let Finchy’s morning wood get as intimate with my arse as yours is right now.”

Harry wriggles, which doesn’t do anything to help his case. His hand has slid up Nick’s stomach to his chest, fingertips shifting in the dark hair over Nick’s pecs. “Mmf.”

“This feels oddly familiar,” Nick mutters under his breath, looking down at Harry’s hand on his chest, rocking his arse back against Harry’s cock. “Need a hand, Styles?”

“Nope,” Harry huffs. He’s barely thrusting against Nick, more of a jerky, uncoordinated little rut that makes his dick slide along the cleft of Nick’s bum. It would probably feel loads better with a bit of lotion or lube or summat, but that’s lost somewhere in the sheets and Nick isn’t about to go look for it. He wonders, for a moment, if he could train Puppy to fetch the lube for him. Would that be unethical? Could he figure it out on his own or would he have to hire someone to teach his dog that sort of thing? 

He only snaps out of his reverie when Harry swipes his thumb over a nipple, and wow, okay, that definitely gets a gasp out of him. “Careful, H,” he breathes. His nipples have been so sensitive they ache when they rub against anything other than worn cotton t-shirts, but Harry’s hands are so warm and so gentle that it’s actually, surprisingly nice.

“Sorry,” Harry whines, right up against Nick’s skin, drawing his hand back down to Nick’s ribs. 

Nick shakes his head, arches his back to grind his arse against Harry’s dick. “That doesn’t mean _stop_.”

Harry makes a choked little growly sound, teeth scraping Nick’s shoulder. “You mean it’s _good_ , then?”

“Means do it again slower,” Nick says, trying to be firm. He’s just awfully turned on is the problem, and he’s shit at being really, truly bossy when Harry’s got his cock in the crack of his arse. 

“Slower,” Harry repeats, and Nick can hear him licking his lips, can easily picture the furrow between his brows.

“Gentler,” Nick clarifies. “Mind the goods.” 

Harry laughs, and it’s the most ridiculous thing, how it makes Nick’s back arch, the nape of his neck tingle. It’s something about how incongruous it is to the rest of the Harry he lives with every day, how low and _dirty_ he gets like this. Something too, probably, about the way his thumb and forefinger are tracing slow, hot circles around Nick’s nipple, tugging just slightly.

“Fuck, _Harry_ ,” Nick groans as Harry drags the edge of a fingernail across his nipple, reaches clumsily past his belly to stroke his cock, aching. He wants to say more, but he can’t form words properly, not when he’s still a bit sleepy and a lot turned on and Harry’s rubbing against him in choppier little thrusts, needy.

Harry palms at Nick’s chest and then moves his hand back like he’s been burnt, grabbing at Nick’s side. Nick’s about to protest except that Harry digs his fingers in and goes stiff behind him, forehead knocking Nick’s shoulder on a dry sob. 

Nick makes a face at the hot wet mess he’s made of his arse and lower back. Harry better be willing to clean him up properly, and soon, before it goes crusty. 

It’s barely a moment before Harry’s hand slides past the bump to curl around Nick’s on his cock, tight and a little damp with sweat. “‘mon, Nick,” he mumbles, still largely incomprehensible, against Nick’s neck, mouthing sloppy kisses back and forth along his shoulder. 

Grunting, Nick rocks his hips into his and Harry’s hands. His sides are starting to hurt, but he’s too close to stop now, wouldn’t want Harry to move or do anything differently. It feels like he’s won something when he gasps, Harry nibbling his shoulder, and finally comes. It’s something bigger than an orgasm, like a silly, gangly boy who manages to make Nick feel sexy even when he knows he probably looks like a beached whale. 

Batting Harry’s hand away from his dick, Nick looks over his shoulder, out the corner of his eye, and grins. “You’re a peach, Styles.”

Harry grunts something pleased sounding and nuzzles Nick’s cheek with his nose, rests his sticky hand on Nick’s hip. “Morning.” He draws the two syllables out, syrupy and contented.

“Heya,” Nick sighs, leaning his head back against Harry’s. “Sleep well?”

“Th’best,” Harry nods. “You?”

Nick refrains from telling him about the half dozen times he woke up to Bee kicking at his left kidney. “Very well,” he says, instead, and it’s alright, because Harry knows he’s lying. He pinches Nick’s side gently to prove it.

“Sorry for the mess,” Harry mutters, and Nick can feel him tipping his chin down. What he doesn’t expect is Harry’s fingertips at the base of his spine, just above his bum, running through the cooling, sticky come.

“Having fun?” Nick says, as casually as he can, because it’s not the first time Harry’s played with his spunk (or Nick’s), but it still makes Nick shiver.

“Loads,” Harry says, a quiet exhale of laughter against Nick’s shoulderblade, an echo of the joke from earlier. It doesn’t fall quite as flat this time around. Harry’s fingertips slide easily down between Nick’s arsecheeks, casually. He could, ostensibly, still be playing with his own mess. “Miss this,” he whispers, instead.

“Yeah, well,” Nick says, lamely, then clutches at his tummy as Bee seems to have found his other kidney and is now punishing him for his inability to communicate like a normal person. “Ow.”

“Hey,” Harry frowns, moving both hands to either side of Nick’s spine, safely and sadly away from Nick’s arse. “Are you okay? D’you want me to get you anything?”

Nick turns his face into his pillow and shrieks. It’s not as impressive as he feels it should be, because his voice is still croaky from sleep and orgasm, and it’s also muffled into three inches of feather down. Then again, he doesn’t really want to wake Puppy. “Fine,” he says, raising his head only long enough to assure Harry before he’s trying smother himself again. 

Harry’s frown is so prominent Nick can _feel_ it against the nape of his neck. “You don’t sound fine,” he argues, reasonably. Nick is not feeling particularly reasonable. He’s a little bit grumpy that Harry had to go and ruin his perfectly nice orgasm by reminding him of how much better ones he’s had. He also wants a shower. 

“You’re a menace,” he tells Harry, and gets a mouthful of pillow for his trouble.

“Incorrigible,” Harry sighs dramatically. “I know. At any rate, d’you want breakfast?” He looks over his shoulder at the alarm clock and corrects himself, “Er, brunch. Or I could run you a bath.”

“Nope,” Nick shakes his head. “Shower. Call a crane to lift me off this bed, please.”

Sitting up, Harry gingerly places his cleanest hand on Nick’s belly, brows furrowed. “Do you feel really bad? Should I call the doctor?”

“I just have to piss, Harold, thanks,” Nick grimaces. “Stop being such a worry-wart, you sound like my nan.” 

It’s to Harry’s credit that he neither takes the bait nor laughs at a grumpy Nick. “Your nan’s a lovely woman,” he points out, and helps Nick upright slowly. “What do you want to eat?”

“Not eggs,” Nick scrunches his nose. “Can I think it over in the shower? That way you can come with and get my back, as you’ve marked your territory on it. Also, you smell.”

“I don’t _smell_ ,” Harry whines, tipping his head down to try and sniff at his armpit.

“You do,” Nick teases. “C’mon, you’ve been appointed the official back-scrubber of this household. Do your job.”

Harry’s still sniffing at his pits and looking slightly offended as he follows Nick into the bathroom, but it doesn’t keep him from getting the water to just the right temperature and pulling two flannels out of the basket of clean laundry for them. 

They don’t have much to say as Harry soaps Nick’s shoulders and works the soft cloth down his back, holding him steady with a hand on his waist. Nick takes the time to bask in the warm water and the flutter of Bee nudging up against his lowest ribs. His lovely Bee.

“Is Bee too silly of a name to like, actually call her?” Harry asks over the sound of the spray, as if he’d been reading Nick’s mind. “Would she get teased for that?”

Nick shrugs, looks over his shoulder at Harry and his floppy wet hair. He hasn’t really considered any names as of yet, other than perhaps Baby or Child, since that seems to have gone over well with Puppy. “Might as well name her Apple or Hashtag or Digestive. _The Sun_ would have a ball.”

“Your nan would cry,” Harry says, and sounds a bit mournful, as if he can picture it now. Thanks to Harry, Nick is doing exactly that. It’s a horrible prospect. His mother would disown him. And his child needs grandparents. 

“Ugh,” Nick groans, rather than admit that Harry’s right. “Do you have any in mind, then?”

Harry hums consideringly, and kisses Nick’s neck, hangs up the flannel and gets down the shampoo to begin working it through his own mess of hair, and then Nick’s. “I was looking at those books that Gills gave us last night,” he says, “Um, the ones she got antiquing?”

“Are we gonna give her a granny name?” Nick smirks. “At least my nan’s sure to like any of those.”

“No-o,” Harry says, drawing it out as if he actually has to think about it. “I mean, I don’t think it’s a granny name? But the woman who wrote them was named Beatrix? And I dunno, I kind of liked that. And it starts with Bee and all, we wouldn’t have to switch her nickname or anything.”

Nick smiles, fond, and tips his head under the spray to rinse off. “Is that the book with the little talking animals?”

“Peter Rabbit,” Harry nods. “I mean- is it still too weird?”

“Someone will find something to say regardless,” Nick points out. Honestly, he really _does_ like strange celebrity baby names, and he wouldn’t give a shit about what _The Sun_ or _The Mirror_ or anyone had to say about him. When it really comes down to it, though, they won’t only be making fun of _him_ ; it’s as good a time as any to start thinking about not just himself but Bee and Harry, too.

“Maybe Beatrice, then?” Harry suggests, scrubbing down his chest.

“My nan would approve,” Nick nods, and then laughs. It’s just a bit surreal to be talking about baby names. Then again, it’s equally as surreal to look down and see the _reason_ they’re talking about baby names. He still hasn’t gotten used to it, but he’s beginning to think that might not be a bad thing. Keep a sense of wonder and all that. 

Harry’s smiling when he turns to look, small and private, just big enough to share between the two of them. 

The three of them.

; 

Deciding on Beatrice is deceptively easy. Nick says yes and Harry drops to his knees in the shower to kiss his tummy (Nick is not unaware of the fact those two actions are usually reversed; it’s a sort of irony not uncommon in his life of late). They go about their morning dreamy and lovesick and generally domestic, the way Nick always wishes for when Harry’s away, and it’s great.

Until they’re in the back garden, and Harry’s just thrown a ball for Puppy, and he turns to Nick and says, “I thought maybe for a middle name we could do Louise?”

“Louise,” Nick repeats, pushing his sunglasses up his nose. “Because of Louis, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Harry nods, sheepish, patting his thigh to beckon Puppy over. “I mean.”

Nick watches as his dog, still not entirely obedient to him when it comes to fetching and retrieving, brings the ball back to Harry in a split second, drops it at his feet and bounces, ready for the next chase. He rubs his palm over his stomach, frowns. “We can’t name our child after just one of your best mates, Harold. It’ll cause mayhem. What will Niall and those other two do? Watch you break up the band with a middle name. Honestly, popstar, that won’t do. I couldn’t live with breaking Zayn Malik’s heart.” 

“Four middle names is too many, though,” Harry pouts, as if this is something he’s put lots of time and neurons into. He throws the ball again and Puppy darts after it, tongue out, tail wagging.

“Are you implying we should have _more_ children so you can name them after people in your band?” Nick squawks, indignant. “I’m not even done _making_ this one!”

Harry turns, and Puppy is ignored for a moment as he smiles at Nick, brighter than the unusually fierce London sun. “Are you implying that you’ve thought of it too?”

Nick tips his sunglasses down and narrows his eyes at Harry. “You’ve evil ways, Styles,” he mutters, then pushes his glasses back up, stoic. “I’m not answering that question.”

Harry, the little shit, seems to take that as a yes. “So Beatrice Louise.”

“Beatrice Never In A Million Years,” Nick counters, and smiles beatifically at Harry over the edge of his sunnies.

Puppy barks from the back of the garden and they both look up just in time to see her dive under a large bush after a rabbit. 

“Oh, fuck,” Nick says, “Harry-” 

“On it,” Harry nods, already headed towards the fence, and Nick’s misfortunate dog. 

Nick couldn’t have asked for better timing. Louise, honestly.

;

The rest of their day is... oddly normal, except for the hazy gloom that’s settled over everyone in the house. Even Bee’s little kicks at Nick’s internal organs seem listless, and Puppy curls up on her favorite corner of the living room rug with big, sad eyes.

Nick feels a little bit useless lying in bed, pretending not to notice Harry grabbing a couple of his t-shirts as he packs. It’s not like he’ll be wearing them anytime soon, he figures, now that he’s a slowly growing human planet. He knows how Harry clings to that sort of thing when he’s on the road, the familiar smell of Nick’s detergent and aftershave strong in the threads, ready to be brought out when he’s feeling homesick. “Remember to pack enough socks,” Nick hums, as Harry stands pigeon-toed and furrowed-browed, staring down at his suitcase.

Their malaise doesn’t get any better when Nick moves to the sofa to flip through channels on the telly, feet up on the coffee table and a Diet Coke rested on his belly as Harry starts making dinner. 

He can only stay away for so long when Harry is so close, his absence inevitable and foreboding. Nick leaves the TV on for Puppy, but only because he’s too lazy and distracted to find the remote where it’s fallen down his cushions. He watches Harry from the doorway for a moment, quiet even with the radio playing. His body is a long single parenthesis, leant up against the counter as he fiddles with something on the cooktop, even the slump of his shoulders reading sad. 

“Hey,” Nick says, because he’s lame and- and because he’s lame.

“Hi,” Harry echoes, but it lacks the usual, chipper lilt, even when he looks over his shoulder at Nick with a tiny smile. “Need anything?”

“No,” Nick says, softly. He suddenly feels old and tired, and he can hear Harry’s voice, _Sometimes I think about... just, saying fuck it, right? We could get married, and-_ “Yes. I don’t want you to go.”

“Nick...” Harry sighs, sounding entirely too old for his nineteen years of age, and flicks off the stove, leans on the counter to look at him. “I- you know I could’ve done something if you said it sooner, but now...”

“I still don’t want you to cancel your tour, Haz,” Nick frowns. He wants to take the five steps across the kitchen and into Harry’s arms, but he’s a bit worried about the effects that’ll have on his ability to hold tears in at the moment.

Harry seems struck by the same sentiment, if Nick has learned to read him at all in the past couple of years. “I know,” he says, so soft Nick nearly misses it. Of course he does, because he knows Nick, too. 

“I’m fine,” Nick says, a little hysterically. “I’m fine, I’ll be fine, I’m just. Missing you. Bee is too, she’s been quiet all day and I swear she knows or she absorbs my emotions or something or, whatever, I don’t know.”

“I’m really gonna miss you a _lot_ ,” Harry sighs, laughs bitterly as if the immensity of it has only just hit him. “Both of you, you know it. But- but maybe we can just, make the most of the bit of time we have left? Because being sad is shit,” he sniffs, blinks the way he does when he’s trying to hold back tears. “I don’t wanna be sad when I have everything I could ever ask for.”

Nick feels like the actual Grinch Who Stole Christmas, chest aching as if his heart’s expanding just like that. “Yeah,” he says, thickly, and sort of stumbles forward, unglued by a sudden need to wrap Harry up and hold on with both arms. 

They meet somewhere in the middle, by the breakfast table, faces tucked into each other’s necks. “I’ll call every single day,” Harry mumbles, voice thick but resolute, “and I’ll send things for the- the nursery, and little shirts and stuffed animals, and I’ll come back as soon as I can, I promise.”

“I’ll just. Wait,” Nick says, and does a little shrug. And then laughs at himself, choking because he’s not actually _that_ pathetic, thanks. He draws back and kisses Harry’s chapped lips, grins at him. “We’ll be here, having fantastic parties with our clique and getting showered in affection and expensive gifts. I plan on milking this ‘baby shower’ thing to the extreme. Call it a baby storm. You’ll be missing out, Harold, there will be cupcakes with nipples on them.” 

“Gutted,” Harry nods. “I’m a nipple expert. You should save one for me.”

“It’ll get all disgusting,” Nick points out, even though he’s already planning on storing one in the freezer just for laughs.

“Wait, why are they nipples?” Harry asks, mock-glaring.

Nick laughs, helplessly. “I thought, like, in support of women who can actually breastfeed,” he mumbles. “But that doesn’t make sense, really.” 

“Well,” Harry says, kindly not agreeing or disagreeing. “If you want nipple cupcakes you should have them. It’s very modern, I’m sure Aimee would enjoy ordering them at the shops.” He doesn’t mention that it’s something he and Nick would’ve done together; make cupcakes from a boxed mix at two in the morning and topped them with pink icing and jelly tots, had a proper laugh over it. Maybe Nick will make them and send Harry a picture. He’d probably like that.

“I’ll settle for whatever you’re making tonight,” Nick shrugs, sways in Harry’s arms. “The nipple cakes can wait.”

“It’s mushroom ravioli,” Harry informs him, looks over his shoulder at the pot on one of Nick’s burners. “Sorry if it ends up sort of mushy, I just didn’t want the pot to overflow, and…”

Nick shakes his head and kisses Harry quiet, can’t help smiling into it, one hand at Harry’s cheek. “We’ll deal,” he assures Harry.

;

Even though Harry’s car isn’t coming to pick him up until a quarter to seven, he wakes up at five with Nick on Monday morning. He helps Nick into the shower, although Nick could do it by himself just fine, and then wanders off to make breakfast. It’s not as elaborate as anything else he’s made that week: simple toast, exactly at the perfect balance of brownness that’s not quite charred but _close_ that Nick loves, laid out with preserves and butter and a jar of Marmite Nick didn’t even know they had; a cup of tea for Nick and one for himself, a glass of orange juice to share, and Nick’s vitamins.

Instead of sitting across from Nick, as usual, Harry scoots his chair up next to Nick’s so their thighs line up beneath the table and their elbows knock. Harry’s sleepy-eyed but makes an effort to stay awake, won’t look away from Nick for longer than it takes to swipe at a bit of jam on his plate with a pinch of toast and pop it in his mouth, like Nick might disappear, and Nick can’t blame him. He loses count of the number of times Harry leans his head onto Nick’s hunched shoulder between bites; he can feel Harry’s jaw working as he chews slowly, tips his head on top of Harry’s a handful of times, too, just to get a whiff of his shampoo.

When they finish eating, Nick picks up his plate to put it in the dishwasher and Harry shakes his head, “I’ll get it, yeah? Let’s brush our teeth,” so Nick sets it back down and follows Harry to the loo, scared of trying to form words and letting a pathetic sob or a choked whine out instead.

Thing is, try as Nick may to tell himself it’s not any different from any other time Harry’s left, it _is_. It’s worse than when he only comes home for the weekend because then Nick barely has any time to get used to his gangly limbs and stupid smile, but it’s not any better than when he’s home in between press and touring and just lazes about. It’s the very absolute worst, Nick thinks glumly, because he wasn’t pregnant and emotional and _scared_ any of those other times.

He sits on the toilet lid, defeated, rather than grabbing his toothbrush from the cup next to Harry’s, and Harry frowns down at him.

“It’s just my back again,” Nick lies, waving a hand, and wonders if Dev would cover for him on such short notice, especially if his excuse is that he wants to spend the day suffocating himself with his duvet.

Harry sees right through it, of course he does, but he nods and fetches Nick two paracetamol tablets, pours him a glass of water from the tap and offers it to Nick. “Drink up,” he hums, and Nick takes both the glass and the medicine, knocks them back. 

Harry kneels before him on the bathroom tile, still sleepy-eyed and mussed-haired and _wonderful_ , and carefully runs his fingers through Nick’s hair. “We’re okay,” he says, and it sounds almost like a reminder to Nick in his even, rumbly tone. “We’ll be okay. All three of us.”

 _Fuck it_ , Nick thinks, and grabs Harry with his hands at either cheek, leaning forward even though Bee’s in the way, _foreshadowing_ , his brain supplies, and kisses him hard enough to bruise, as if to preemptively make up for all the kisses they’ll miss in the coming months. He’d _meant_ to postpone the whole crying and kissing scene until after he was ready and waiting for his cabbie to text, but it’s hard to keep promises to oneself with a boy like Harry around to foil every plan. Getting ready can wait. The cabbie can wait. Hell, the _nation_ can wait, if you ask Nick.

“We’ll be okay,” he repeats, right up against Harry’s gasping, kiss-swollen mouth.

Between them, if her shuffling about is anything to go by, Bee thinks so, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Bonus: Shakira's [baby](http://pc-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/shakira-fathers-day-photo.jpg) in the DJ Sleep-A-Lot onesie. You're welcome.


End file.
